'Ecclesia Semper Reformanda'. Renewal and Reform Beyond Polemics (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium) 9789042941427, 9789042941434, 9042941421

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ECCLESIA SEMPER REFORMANDA RENEWAL AND REFORM BEYOND POLEMICS PETER DE MEY – WIM FRANÇOIS

ECCLESIA SEMPER REFORMANDA RENEWAL AND REFORM BEYOND POLEMICS

BIBLIOTHECA EPHEMERIDUM THEOLOGICARUM LOVANIENSIUM

EDITED BY THE BOARD OF EPHEMERIDES THEOLOGICAE LOVANIENSES

L.-L. Christians, J. Famerée, É. Gaziaux, J. Geldhof, A. Join-Lambert, M. Lamberigts, J. Leemans, D. Luciani, A.C. Mayer, O. Riaudel, J. Verheyden

EXECUTIVE EDITORS

J. Famerée, M. Lamberigts, D. Luciani, O. Riaudel, J. Verheyden

EDITORIAL STAFF

R. Corstjens – C. Timmermans

UNIVERSITÉ CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE

KU LEUVEN LEUVEN

BIBLIOTHECA EPHEMERIDUM THEOLOGICARUM LOVANIENSIUM CCCVI

ECCLESIA SEMPER REFORMANDA RENEWAL AND REFORM BEYOND POLEMICS

EDITED BY

PETER DE MEY – WIM FRANÇOIS

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2020

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-90-429-4142-7 eISBN 978-90-429-4143-4 D/2020/0602/31 All rights reserved. Except in those cases expressly determined by law, no part of this publication may be multiplied, saved in an automated data file or made public in any way whatsoever without the express prior written consent of the publishers. © 2020 – Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium)

TABLE OF CONTENTS PETER DE MEY – WIM FRANÇOIS (KU Leuven) Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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I. THE DEBATE ON THE FOUNDATIONS SCRIPTURE, TRADITION, AND REASONS

Wim FRANÇOIS (KU Leuven) “Scriptures” and “Non-Scriptural” Traditions: Evolutions at the Beginning of the Reformation Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Howard Henry Drake WILLIAMS III (Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven) Towards a More Systematic Theology: Caspar Schwenckfeld’s Main Theological Themes from His Exposition of Psalm CII in Relation to His Deutsche Theologia with a Comparison to Other Major Reformers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Neil ARNER (University of Notre Dame, IN) The Unfinished Reformation: The Scriptural Renewal of Catholic Theology since the Twentieth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Wouter BIESBROUCK (KU Leuven) Inerrancy of Scripture: Evangelical and Catholic Perspectives .

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Craig A. BARON (St. John’s University, Queens, NY) The “Return” of Natural Theology: Insights from the First Vatican Council and Karl Barth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 II. KEY TENSIONS THEN AND NOW JUSTIFICATION, GRACE, AND SACRAMENTS

Andreas J. BECK (Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven) Doing Justice to Justification: Historical Reflections on a Decisive Controversy of the Reformation Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Karen KILBY (Durham University) Catholicism, Protestantism and the Theological Location of Paradox: Nature, Grace, Sin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

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Philip J. ROSSI (Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI) Plurality as “the Grace of Secularity”: Reform, God’s Transcendence, and the Horizons of Otherness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Lee Palmer WANDEL (University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI) Between Mystery and Doctrine: The Eucharist in the Sixteenth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Benedict D. FISCHER (KU Leuven / University of Mary, Bismarck, ND) Multo Magis Mincha: Cornelius a Lapide’s Interpretation of the Hebrew Mincha Sacrifice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Susan K. WOOD (University of Toronto) Eucharistic Sacrifice in Ecumenical Dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 T. Derrick WITHERINGTON (KU Leuven / Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI) Sacraments of the Word in the Spirit: A Hermeneutical-Theological Deepening of Chauvet’s Notion of Anamnesis in Service to Ecumenism in the Contemporary Western Context . . . . . . . . 253 III. DEMOCRATISATION AND LEADERSHIP STRUCTURES IN THE CHURCH

Charlotte METHUEN (University of Glasgow) Priests, Presbyters, and the Priesthood of All Believers: Reflections on the Reformation, Lay Authority, and Democratization . 275 Colby DICKINSON (Loyola University Chicago, IL) Exploring a Negative Catholic Ecclesiology in Conversation with Contemporary Continental Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 Christopher MCMAHON (Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, PA) Beyond Hubris: The Case for a More Performative Approach to Roman Catholic Ecclesiology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 Elochukwu UZUKWU (Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA) Ministry with “Large Ears”: Approaches to Dynamic African Patterns of Reform and Renewal in the Church Today . . . . . . . 337 Tim NOBLE (Charles University, Prague) The Holy Spirit and Reform in Liberation Theology . . . . . . . . . 361 Annemarie C. MAYER (KU Leuven) Beyond Hierarchical Fixation: People of God and “Democratisation” of Church Structures – a Catholic Perspective . . . . . . . 377

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IV. REMEMBERING ECUMENICALLY

Ivana NOBLE (Charles University, Prague) Jan Hus: Between Reform and Reformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397 Thomas HUGHSON (Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI) Receptive Ecumenism: Initiative, Method, Identity, Flexibility

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Theodor DIETER (Institute for Ecumenical Research, Strasbourg) Remembering the Reformation Ecumenically and Engaging the Future of Ecumenism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439 INDEX OF NAMES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465

INTRODUCTION

This volume is the fruit of the eleventh Leuven Encounters in Systematic Theology (LEST XI) which was organized by KU Leuven’s Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies from 11-14 October, 2017. On the occasion of the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, this conference focused on the ongoing need for the renewal and reform of the Churches, a desideratum encapsulated in the well-known adage, Ecclesia semper reformanda. The quest for such renewal constitutes a challenge for theologians of all confessional traditions. Each and every attempt to renew – or reform – a tradition must seek an equilibrium between the affirmation of one’s particular identity and the call to engage in meaningful dialogue with other Churches. There is always a danger that this encounter might degenerate into confrontation or polemics. The different chapters of this volume deal with topics that often were at the forefront of the theological controversies which raged during the transitional period between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. This historical period is commemorated in the first articles of each of the three main parts of this volume, whereas the fourth, concluding part offers an ecumenically-oriented reflection on the renewal and reform of the Church today. PART I focuses on important debates that were, then and now, dealing with the foundations of theology, viz. Scripture, tradition(s), and reason. Wim FRANÇOIS (KU Leuven) starts his essay with the Paris theologian Jean Gerson (1363-1429) who, when confronted with a variant of the sola scriptura-principle of John Wyclif, John Hus and others, engaged in a thorough reflection on the relation between the Scriptures and the interpretational tradition(s) that had been handed down in the Church. Gerson’s view would develop in the fifteenth century into the communis opinio in this regard, and would therefore serve as a basis for the Louvain theologian Jacobus Latomus (c. 1475-1544) who, more than a century later, had to deal with humanists and Lutherans who, in their turn, claimed to build their theological argumentation mainly, if not exclusively, upon the Scriptures. This caused Latomus to engage in a further reflection on the relation between the Scriptures, on the one hand, and the customs and even doctrines that were handed down in the Church apart from the Bible, on the other. Apart from this basic historical-

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theological approach, this essay engages in a broader discussion with history of law, where the relation between the oral and the written law was debated in a similar way in the period under consideration. The study concludes with some more general thoughts from a culturalhistorical point of view, reflecting on the transition that took place in the Late Middle Ages, from a pre-modern culture, which was predominantly oral, to a modern society where the written word would receive an ever-increasing authority. Giving credit to the Scriptures as the basis of Protestant theology, Howard Henry Drake WILLIAMS III (Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven) analyses Caspar Schwenckfeld’s (1490-1561) Exposition of Psalm CII, next to his Deutsche Theologia, as a (rare) basis to discover a more systematic exposition of his theology. It shows that Schwenckfeld’s theology is very christological in nature – far more outspoken than that of Luther and Calvin – and the sole basis for his perception of the salvation for individuals. It gives us also an insight into his view of the Church in his day. Neil ARNER (University of Notre Dame, IN) claims in his chapter that Leo XIII and Pius XII successfully initiated a scriptural renewal of Catholic theology in the early-twentieth century. That direction of reform received global endorsement at the Second Vatican Council and was then implemented broadly by numerous theologians in subsequent decades. There is still more work to be done to achieve a thoroughgoing renovation of the Catholic Church according to Scripture. Yet it is important to note, now five hundred years after the start of the Protestant Reformation, that Catholic and Protestant communions alike understand their vocation as submitting to a continual reform according to the Word of God. Wouter BIESBROUCK (KU Leuven) points out what Roman Catholics and Evangelicals can learn from each other’s biblical hermeneutics, especially in relation to the key concepts of the inspiration and inerrancy of the Scriptures. Biesbrouck especially comments on five theological points that need further discussion: the relation of Scripture and Revelation, the issue of authority, sola scriptura, the usefulness of referring to the analogy of the Incarnation to explain the imperfections in Scripture, and, finally, the tension between a propositional versus relational understanding of truth. For Craig A. BARON (St. John’s University, Queens, NY), the fivehundredth anniversary of the Reformation is a most opportune time to revisit the status of “natural theology”. The roots of the debate go back to Luther’s negative reaction to scholastic theology and the deleterious effects of sin. The point of departure for much of the contemporary

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ecumenical debate, in the Catholic world, stems from the First Vatican Council and the claim that there is natural knowledge of God and Karl Barth’s “nein”, in the Protestant domain, to any kind of natural knowledge of God. Since the supposed end of metaphysics, numerous postmodern thinkers have added their voices and championed the demise of natural theology and proofs for God’s existence. Currently, though, there has been a nuancing of both theological positions, as well as a modulating of the dismissive attitude of postmodernism. Baron’s contribution converses with some of the major contemporary voices in this debate – especially Walter Kasper and John Macquarrie – to see where a possible ecumenical convergence, “beyond polemics”, might be found among Protestants, Catholics and Anglicans, when doing natural theology for the third millennium. PART II investigates the important theological issues that have their roots in the Reformation Era, including the tensile relationship between sin, grace, free will, justification and sanctification, and the controversies related to the Eucharist, including the notion of sacrifice. Andreas BECK (Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven) focuses on the doctrine of justification, which caught the full attention of the main protagonists of the Reformation and continues to do so to this day. Starting with the debates on justification at the Diet of Augsburg (1530) – highlighting Melanchthon’s view – Beck shows how the Catholics’ and Protestants’ discussing the doctrine of justification at the Colloquy of Worms (1540/1541) and especially at the Colloquy of Regensburg (1541) led to a remarkable agreement (the famous “double justice”-doctrine). Beck argues that “the ‘Regensburg Book’ never reached confessional status and was superseded by the decrees of the Council of Trent and by Protestant confessions, both of which enforced the confessional divides” (p. 156). In an ecumenical spirit, however, Beck asks attention for the strong role of grace in the Tridentine doctrine of justification, counter to the Protestant allegations of semi-Pelagianism against Trent’s doctrine of justification. On the other hand, the author deplores that the Council of Trent anathematized the Protestant sola fide-doctrine since it understood this formula in terms of an exclusively intellectualist concept of faith, while failing to see how voluntas and caritas were actually founding a concrete and living faith, which affects the whole human being in his or her relation to God. According to Karen KILBY (Durham University) one can still observe a distinctive Catholic and a distinctive Protestant pattern in theological reflections on grace. Catholic thought on grace tends to be shaped by pairing it with nature, whereas for many Protestant theologians sin is

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the problem for which grace is the solution. Moreover both positions are accompanied by paradoxical statements. In the case of Protestants, one emphasizes that God is continuously revealing his healing presence to humans, but at the same time one insists that the human person remains a sinner. In the case of Catholic theologians such as Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner, Kilby observes a similar paradoxical affirmation of both the fundamental goodness of nature and a natural desire for the supernatural. In the second part of her essay Kilby analyzes recent work by Kathryn Tanner. Kilby concludes from her evaluation of these paradoxes in recent Catholic and Protestant theology that “the ongoing dualism of theological styles may rather be one of the gifts of the Reformation” (p. 171). Against the background of the open conflict among different theological construals of grace during the Reformation, the chapter by Philip J. ROSSI (Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI) offers a case for a re-orientation of that conversation away from an intramural focus to one that is occasioned (and perhaps even made necessary) by the circumstances of Christian living in a secular age. This repositioning has its basis in the attentiveness to plurality that has arisen as a key marker of the social imaginary of secularity. According to the author the very fracture, incompleteness, and interruption that thoroughly interlace secularity’s immanent frame and all who inhabit it are key loci in which humans are called upon to be participants in the enactment of grace. The original disputes between Catholics and Protestants in the sixteenth century often dealt with the understanding of the sacraments in general, and the Eucharist in particular. Lee Palmer WANDEL (University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI) takes as a point of departure the rituals and the concomitant sensorial experience – movements, colors, many different sorts of sound, gestures, textures, taste, and scent – which accompanied the celebration of the Mass and other sacraments in the late-medieval Church. However, as in François’ exposition, Wandel shows how the written and printed word received an authority in the Early Modern Era which it had not yet in the Middle Ages. Luther heavily criticized the ritual practices and sensorial experience connected to the celebration of the Eucharist, while strongly emphasizing that bread and wine receive their meaning through the words and the words alone. And at the Council of Trent the doctrine of the Mass – real presence, transubstantiation, and the mass as a sacrifice – received a far more explicit formulation than it had ever had before. As a witness to this switch from “mystery” to “doctrine”, “all catechisms, Lutheran, Reformed, and Catholic taught the children of their respective Churches

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to conceive of the Eucharist as something the page, black printed words alone on the surface of paper, could teach” (p. 210). Benedict D. FISCHER (KU Leuven / University of Mary, Bismarck, ND) assesses renowned early modern Bible commentator Cornelius a Lapide’s (1567-1637) approach to the Hebrew Mincha, or grain sacrifice, through his commentary on two Old Testament texts: Leviticus 2 and Mal 1,11. He particularly deals with A Lapide’s use of these texts as theological support for the Mass as the “mincha” of Jesus. Susan K. WOOD (University of Toronto) even so focuses on the Eucharist as sacrifice, an issue which still requires further ecumenical dialogue. She first rehearses the apparent opposition between Luther’s convictions and the teaching of the Council of Trent on this point. Today the ecumenical dialogue has already made significant progress so that one may wonder whether the condemnations of the past affect the current understanding of the Eucharist by both Churches. Wood shows how the Lutheran-Catholic dialogue and many other dialogues could profit from the careful reflection on the Eucharist as “memorial”, as a “sacramental representation” of Christ’s sacrifice in the Anglican – Roman Catholic dialogue. Further progress can be reached according to Wood through the development of a Trinitarian theology that would no longer explain the salvation brought by the cross in terms of the medieval satisfaction theory of Anselm, but as the expression of Jesus’ faithfulness to his divine mission “for us and our salvation”. The French Roman Catholic theologian Louis-Marie Chauvet is most well-known for his innovative sacramental-theological method. Taking Chauvet’s focus on the Word as well as his pneumatological emphasis as a starting point, T. Derrick WITHERINGTON (KU Leuven / Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI) connects Chauvet’s reflections with Ricœur’s understanding of language as poesis as well as with his theory of metaphor. Inspired by the five-hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, he also shows how such an understanding of sacrament, grounded in the Word and sustained by the Spirit, provides ample ecumenical opportunities for the dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church communities born out of the Reformation. PART III examines democratization and leadership structures in the Church. Charlotte METHUEN (University of Glasgow) asks the question whether the Reformation contributed to the democratization of the Church, or indeed society? With a view to an answer, she examines Luther’s idea

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of the shared priesthood of all believers, as well as Reformed ecclesiology, the latter seeming to give a more formal involvement to lay people – or at least to lay men – as elders and deacons, but also as members of congregations. Methuen’s conclusion is that neither approach can be described as democratization in the strict sense of the word, since authorized and duly educated – male – ministers preserved for themselves the right to preach and administer the sacraments. Nonetheless, Methuen also emphasizes that a broad spectrum of lay people did feel themselves empowered by these new ecclesiologies, “although this sense of calling sometimes caused them to be treated as suspect by Church authorities” (p. 276). In the long history of reform within the Catholic Church messianic forces for reform co-exist alongside whatever concrete form the Church has taken, positing the possibility for something like a negative ecclesiology next to and even within a given ecclesiology. Just as Jesus was a messianic movement within, and so somewhat apart from and a challenge to, the Judaism of his day, so too does a negative ecclesiology motivate the heart of every Catholic ecclesiology, despite being mainly invisible in actually existing Church structures. In dialogue with authors such as Giorgio Agamben and John Caputo Colby DICKINSON (Loyola University Chicago, IL) reflects in his essay on a number of fascinating questions. How exactly might a negative ecclesiology develop in messianic fashion within Catholic ecclesial structures? What would such a force that borders on the antinomian look like? How may such a force have undergirded the existence of the Catholic Church all along? And how might it be listened to instead of repressed for the health of the Church as a whole? Christopher MCMAHON (Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, PA) is aware that Roman Catholic ecclesiology has served as a point of contention since the time of the Reformation, although the Second Vatican Council’s nuanced, inclusive, and more ecumenical approach to ecclesiology provided a significant step forward. In the first and second section of his chapter, McMahon focuses on Dominus Iesus, a document which was widely viewed as retrograde and provoked a backlash among many Christians, as well as on the emergence of a “‘new’ neo-Thomism” (p. 323). According to the author a more functional approach to ecclesiology provides a way forward by recasting the major themes of Catholic ecclesiology within a more ecumenical framework, one that is also likely to contribute to ongoing reform of Church structures and enhance the mission of the Church within the contemporary world. The Catholic Church in Africa has gone through two rather highly publicized synods: The Synods of Bishops for Africa 1994 and 2009.

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According to Elochukwu UZUKWU (Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA) the results of the two synods are way below the expectations, the energy, and the dynamism demonstrated in the Church and its leadership in the 1970s. In Evangelii Gaudium Pope Francis lamented that “Excessive centralization, rather than proving helpful, complicates the Church’s life and her missionary outreach”. Uzukwu is convinced that the wishes of the Pope if carried through will happily rekindle the dynamism experienced in the Churches of Africa in the 1970s. This will not only reinvigorate liturgical creativity, that is today moving backwards to Tridentine uniformism, but will also reawake the reinvention of Church structures, energizing small Christian communities. Tim NOBLE (Charles University, Prague) discusses selected presentations from a 2015 meeting of Catholic theologians that sought to foster the practice of liberation theology in Latin America and the Caribbean. The theme of the congress was “The Church that Walks with the Spirit and from the Perspective of the Poor”, and one of the major sections of the conference was “Paths to turn to in the processes of reform”. Three aspects of the importance of the necessary ongoing reform of the Church are highlighted in this chapter: pneumatology, liberation and process. The paper argues that there can be no reform without the presence and work of the Holy Spirit, that all reform should aim (at the very least among other things) at the liberation of those who are excluded, socially, economically, politically, and that this reform is a process that requires the commitment and activity of all members of the Church. Annemarie C. MAYER (KU Leuven) already made a clear case in the title of her contribution: “Beyond Hierarchical Fixation: People of God and ‘Democratisation’ of Church Structures”. Rather than borrowing from political concepts of democracy that are foreign to her, the Second Vatican Council could rely on an idea which is found already in the New Testament, i.e. that the Church can be called a messianic and priestly people. Different from Luther’s idea of the “universal” or “general” priesthood, the Council prefers to speak about the “common priesthood”, the priesthood which priests and laity have in common. If it was the clear intention of the Council to promote synodality, the 1983 Code of Canon Law seemed to restrict their share in the royal office of Christ to taking part in some and being excluded from other consultative bodies in the Church. Luckily Mayer is able to refer to Pope Francis as the first pope who really wants to move his Church forward on the way towards real synodality, which requires processes to allow the laity to reach a true consensus fidelium and the ordained to exercise their ministry in a truly collegial way.

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PART IV concludes with a reflection on what a historically-informed awareness can contribute to the ecumenical conscience, as well as on the future of ecumenism, and on the appropriate hermeneutical method to be used in this field. Ivana NOBLE (Charles University, Prague) studies the figure of Jan Hus (c. 1370-1415), who plead for a reform of the Church, but was accused of heresy and eventually burned at the stake by the Council of Constance (1415). Subsequent protests in Bohemia led to war and alienation from Rome, as well as to new forms of ecclesial life in the Catholic Church in Bohemia which assumed a greater authority for the local Church. Hus’ spiritual heritage has been integrated into the Protestant Reformation, whereas after the Second Vatican Council his pleas for conversion and reform in the Church have been re-evaluated. This evaluation has even led to his rehabilitation, a process that received the support of Pope John Paul II and continues to receive the support of Pope Francis. The historical events and the ecclesial processes coming in their wake invite Ivana Noble to reflect upon the intersections between reform movements within Catholicism and between Protestants and Catholics. The model of receptive ecumenism developed at Durham University pertains to what Catholicism has been learning from other Churches. It is also open to what other Churches may learn from Catholicism. In his chapter Thomas HUGHSON (Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI) focuses on the Lutheran appropriation of Pope Francis’ Laudato si’ in a 2016 collective volume dealing with Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in Peril. The direction in the Lutheran proposal is toward a new understanding of Ecclesia semper reformanda. Sustaining the Reformation requires an Eco-Reformation, ecclesial conversion to a renewed relation to God through a renewed relation with creation. Last but not least, Theodor DIETER (Institute for Ecumenical Research, Strasbourg), who received an honorary doctorate from KU Leuven in 2017 for his outstanding work in the field of Luther studies and Lutheran – Roman Catholic ecumenism, pays attention to both the task of ecumenically remembering the Reformation and of engaging the future of ecumenism. He first reconstructs the path for Catholics and Lutherans to commemorate the Reformation ecumenically. Today, one is able to better appreciate that there were different actors involved in the sequence of events that eventually led to the separation. This, in turn, invites people to understand the Reformation as the ensemble of theological and spiritual insights of the various Lutheran Reformers, rather than merely focusing on their doctrines that still divide the Churches. In the second section, the chapter focuses on the future of the dialogue between

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INTRODUCTION

Lutherans and Catholics. The most critical question raised to Catholics by Dieter is whether in the end they do not understand the goal of visible unity as a return to their Church. Taking seriously the invitation of Cardinal Koch to work towards a Joint Declaration on Church, Ministry and Eucharist, he criticizes the declaration “on the way” prepared by Lutheran and Catholic ecumenists in the US for not having used the method of searching for a differentiating consensus. KU Leuven Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies St.-Michielsstraat 4/3101 BE-3000 Leuven Belgium [email protected] [email protected]

Peter DE MEY Wim FRANÇOIS

I THE DEBATE ON THE FOUNDATIONS SCRIPTURE, TRADITION, AND REASON

“SCRIPTURES” AND “NON-SCRIPTURAL” TRADITIONS EVOLUTIONS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE REFORMATION ERA

INTRODUCTION Several developments in the late medieval Church, such as the Babylonian captivity of the papacy, the increased sophistication of scholastic theology, as well as the accretion of various devotional practices, brought an increasingly literate urban population in North-Western Europe to a more personal, internalized, and more text-centered religiosity. While many came to regard Sacred Scripture as the point of access par excellence to the purity of original Christianity, some more radical spirits, such as John Wyclif and John Hus, leaned toward early versions of the sola scriptura doctrine. These thinkers critically questioned all kinds of traditions and customs, which were alleged to have been handed down orally since the Apostolic Era, and had been written in all sorts of documents, such as the decrees and decretals of the Church, but were now challenged as being of contestable origin1. Among late medieval theologians who engaged in a reflection concerning the significance of Scripture as a source of theological truth, as well as the relationship between Scripture and the interpretational tradition(s) of the Church, was the famous Parisian theologian Jean Gerson (1363-1429), whose view on the subject would eventually develop into the communis opinio. The latter was brought to a fuller development more than a century later by theologians such as the Lovaniensis Jacob Latomus (c. 1475-1544), who had to deal with the same issues brought about by both humanists and Lutherans championing Scripture as the sole basis for the reform of the Church. This essay will offer a theological-

* I would like to thank my colleague, Prof. Yelena Mazour-Matusevich, University of Alaska Fairbanks, for her extremely valuable suggestions on an earlier draft of this article, as well as Ms. Eliza Halling for the final check of the English. 1. See, amongst others, A.E. MCGRATH, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, Oxford, Blackwell, ²2004, esp. pp. 30, 137, and 146-147; A. LEVI, Renaissance and Reformation: The Intellectual Genesis, New Haven, CT – London, Yale University Press, 2002, esp. pp. 133-153; also: G. D’ONOFRIO, History of Theology. Vol. 2: The Middle Ages, trans. M.J. O’CONNELL, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2008, pp. 514525; R.N. SWANSON, The Pre-Reformation Church, in A. PETTEGREE (ed.), The Reformation World, London – New York, Routledge, 2000, 9-30.

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historical exploration of how Gerson and Latomus determined the relationship between libri scripti and sine scripto traditiones, in confrontation with the sola scriptura principles in the transitional era between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period; whilst also contending that the distrust of orally transmitted customs, and the desire to rely solely upon written sources, went beyond the theological world and extended into other cultural spheres, such as jurisprudence. The study concludes with some more general considerations from a cultural-historical point of view, reflecting on the transition that took place in the Late Middle Ages, from a pre-modern culture, which was predominantly oral, to a modern society, where the written word would receive an ever-increasing authority. I. JEAN GERSON AND THE COMMUNIS OPINIO SCRIPTURE AND UNWRITTEN TRADITION(S)

ABOUT

Jean Gerson2 developed his views on Scripture and tradition(s) in works such as De sensu litterali sacrae scripturae (On the Literal Sense of Sacred Scripture, 1413/14)3, as well as the preface preceding De necessaria communione laicorum sub utraque specie (On the Necessity of Communion under Both Kinds, 1417) – a work written in the context of the Council of Constance and therefore a document of utmost value4. We also find discussions on the same subject in Gerson’s Réponse à la consultation des maîtres (Response to the Masters, 1415)5. 2. Among the manifold introductions on Gerson, the following are important for our topic: G.H.M. POSTHUMUS MEYJES, Jean Gerson Apostle of Unity: His Church Politics and Ecclesiology, trans. J.C. GRAYSON (Studies in the History of Christian Thought, 94), Leiden – Boston, MA – Köln, 1999, pp. 314-339; M.S. BURROWS, Jean Gerson and De Consolatione Theologiae (1418): The Consolation of a Biblical and Reforming Theology for a Disordered Age (Beiträge zur historischen Theologie, 78), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 1991, esp. pp. 102-126 and 226-240; also D.Z. FLANAGIN, Making Sense of It All: Gerson’s Biblical Theology, in B.P. MCGUIRE (ed.), A Companion to Jean Gerson (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 3), Leiden – Boston, MA, Brill, 2006, 133-177; Y. MAZOUR-MATUSEVICH, Le siècle d’or de la mystique française: Un autre regard. Étude de la littérature spirituelle de Jean Gerson (1363-1429) à Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (1450?-1536), Paris – Milano, Archè, 2004. For references to the works of Gerson, we use the standardized edition: Jean GERSON, Œuvres complètes, ed. P. GLORIEUX, 13 vols., Paris, Desclée de Brouwer,1960-74. All English translations are ours. 3. GERSON, De sensu litterali sacrae scripturae, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 3, esp. pp. 333340. 4. GERSON, De necessaria communione laicorum sub utraque specie, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 10, esp. pp. 55-58. 5. GERSON, Réponse à la consultation des maîtres, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 10, esp. pp. 232-253.

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1. Scriptures In line with the medieval tradition, Gerson declared Scripture, in its literal sense, to be of supreme importance in matters of doctrine, and the sole basis for a trustworthy theology. However, the discussion with Hus and like-minded dissenters revealed the necessity of determining what constitutes the actual literal sense, as well as the extent of subsequent interpretation of Sacred Scripture6: …[The heretics] contend that their statements are founded upon Sacred Scripture and its actual literal sense, since they maintain that they only want to follow and admit Scripture, while at the same time rejecting and holding valueless all other constitutions or documents containing decrees and decretals, which they consider apocryphal and against Christ…7.

Gerson noticed that the Wyclifites, Hussites and other so-called heretics claimed to base their positions on the literal sense (sensus litteralis) of Scripture, while he blamed them for rejecting all other ecclesiastical constitutions (constitutiones) and documents, such as decrees and decretals. In Gerson’s eyes, these refutations were extremely worrisome, since their authors limited the literal sense to the mere grammatical meaning. In his retort to this position, he not only reiterated the medieval view that the literal sense of Scripture is that which the Spirit or the inspired author had intended, but, in line with late medieval developments, also considerably extended its understanding. An interesting passage in this regard is to be found in the Réponse à la consultation des maîtres, where Gerson argues that the Spirit has expressed his intention in a threefold way. The first way consists in the Spirit’s intentional use of straightforward terms in narrating historical events and giving moral encouragement (the literalgrammatical sense). The second manner – and Gerson concisely refers to the triad of verba – res1 – res2, which was a well-known interpretational principle in late medieval biblical scholarship – means that physical objects, persons, numbers, places, times and seasons, events (“things” or res1) referred to in the words of the Bible, were also signs of something else, namely deeper mysteries of faith (res2). The belief behind such interpretation was that God is the master of all created things and can 6. Cf. McGRATH, The Intellectual Origins (n. 1), pp. 119-121 and 137-138; also, History of Theology, vol. 2 (n. 1), pp. 522-523. 7. GERSON, De sensu litterali, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 3, p. 334: “…dicunt [haeretici] fundari dicta sua in Scriptura Sacra et ejus sensu vero litterali, quam solam scripturam dicunt se velle insequi et admittere, rejectis et pro nihilo habitis quibuscumque constitutionibus aliis vel scripturis decretorum vel decretalium quas appellant apocryphas et Christo adversas…”. D’ONOFRIO,

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therefore use them at will to signify something else. In this regard, Gerson refers to a classical example: “Mount Sion shall be exalted above all hills” (Isa 2,2). Gerson explains that the actual res referred to, Mount Sion, represents or signifies a spiritual res, namely the Church, which shall be spiritually exalted above all hills. Something similar, continues Gerson, can be said about metaphorical language and parables in Scripture. The third way portends to the idea that the Spirit has even made use of the duplex sensus litteralis, where Gerson refers, by way of example, to the stories about David and other kings of the Old Testament, who are historical persons in real events, whilst also simultaneously being prefigurations of Christ and his works8. On the basis of this elaboration, we may conclude that Gerson has stretched the literal sense of Scripture so far as to include senses that theologians and biblical scholars had previously considered to be part of the spiritual sense. The literal sense of Scripture, interpreted in this broad way, and not in its narrow literal-grammatical way, was seen as the necessary basis for efficacious and authoritative argumentation in theology, something that Gerson repeated in several passages of the works under consideration here9.

8. GERSON, Réponse, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 10, p. 239: “The Holy Spirit speaks in a threefold manner: first, by speaking in conventional terms and by adopting terms which in their ultimate and principal meaning give expression to the concepts of his speaking in us; in this way he speaks in the moralizing stories contained in Sacred Scripture and in historical narratives. In a second way, the Holy Spirit speaks in Sacred Scripture by using terms in their principal connotation, although considering the signified things through terms [used] only to signify other things … The same is done with things that are used metaphorically, and with the parables of the Gospel … In a third way the Spirit speaks in both manners, namely by terms and by things signified through terms; and expressions of this kind have a double literal sense”. This is a translation of “Spiritus Sanctus tripliciter loquitur: uno modo loquendo terminis impositis et assumendo terminos ultimate et principaliter pro expressione conceptuum suae locutionis in nobis; et isto modo loquitur in moralibus contentis in Sacra Scriptura et in historiis aliquibus. Secundo modo loquitur Spiritus Sanctus in Sacra Scriptura utendo terminis principaliter, sed assumendo res significatas per terminos ad significandum res alias tantummodo … Similiter in rebus figurativis, et parabolis evangelii … Tertio modo loquitur Spiritus utroque modo, scilicet per terminos et per res significatas per terminos; et hujusmodi locutiones duplicem habent sensum litteralem…”. 9. “efficax argumentum secundum auctoritatem”, GERSON, Réponse, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 10, p. 241; see also De sensu litterali, ed. GLORIEUX, vol. 3, p. 334; Declaratio compendiosa quae veritates sint de necessitate salutis credendae, ed. GLORIEUX, vol. 6, p. 185; Réponse, ed. GLORIEUX, vol. 10, p. 239. In more than one place, we find a reference to AUGUSTINUS, Ep. ad Hieronymum 82.3 and 24, ed. K.D. DAUR (CCSL, 31A), Turnhout, Brepols, 2005, pp. 99 ll. 51-60 and 114 l. 503 – 115 l. 519.

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2. The Interpretational or Exegetical Tradition of the Church Although Gerson stressed that everything necessary for salvation is included in one way or another in the literal sense of Scripture10, he never doubted that the literal sense needs further interpretation, which he considered to be the task of the universal Church and not that of individual opinion. The latter conviction is the core of his arguments against Wycliffe, Hus, and other “heretics”. Indeed, the Paris master was convinced that the Church was guided by the same Spirit that had inspired Scripture, and, therefore, the Church could not err, just as Scripture itself could not11. In this regard, he referred repeatedly to the classic patristic text, namely Augustine’s Contra epistolam Manichaei quam vocant fundamenti 5: “I would not have believed the Gospel if the authority of the Church had not compelled me”12. According to Gerson, Augustine’s dictum implied that the faithful could know which books of Scripture belong to the canon and which do not, based on the authority of the Church, as he made clear in a passage from De necessaria communione laicorum sub utraque specie: Sacred Scripture, in its reception and authentic exposition, ultimately depends on the authority, reception and approval of the universal Church, especially of the primitive Church, which has received it [the Scripture], as well as its understanding, immediately from Christ through the revelation by the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and other things. Only through the authority of the Church is it evident that what Matthew wrote was truly Gospel and what Nicodemus wrote [was] not13.

In other passages of the same treatise, Gerson emphasized how an unbroken line of witnesses in the Church guaranteed the sound explanation of Scripture and the unfolding of the doctrine of the faith, which was later canonically sealed by Councils:

10. GERSON, De sensu litterali, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 3, p. 336. 11. GERSON, De sensu litterali, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 3, p. 335; De necessaria communione, ed. GLORIEUX, vol. 10, pp. 58 and 67-68. 12. Amongst others to be found in GERSON, De sensu litterali, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 3, p. 335; also De vita spirituali animae, ed. GLORIEUX, vol. 3, p. 139. The reference is to AUGUSTINUS, Contra epistolam Manichaei quam vocant fundamenti 5, ed. J. ZYCHA (CSEL, 25), Wien, Tempsky, 1891, p. 197 ll. 22-23. 13. GERSON, De necessaria communione, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 10, p. 58: “Scriptura Sacra in sua receptione et expositione authentica, finaliter resolvitur in auctoritatem, receptionem et approbationem universalis Ecclesiae, praesertim primitivae, quae recepit eam et ejus intellectum immediate a Christo revelante Spiritu Sancto in die Pentecostes, et alias pluries. Patet quia quod Matthaeus scripserit veraciter evangelium et Nicodemus non, solum habemus ab auctoritate Ecclesiae…”.

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The literal sense of Sacred Scripture had first been revealed by Christ and the Apostles and been elucidated by miracles. Subsequently, it had been confirmed by the blood of the martyrs. Then sacred doctors elicited more elaborately the said sense against the heretics, by a careful reasoning, while at the same time drawing the conclusions that follow from it in a more clear and probable way. Finally, the determination of the sacred councils followed so that what had been doctrinally discussed by the doctors was defined in a formal-juridical way by the Church14.

In this and other passages15, Gerson argued that it was the Primitive Church which had received the authentic sense of Scripture (the sensus litteralis), initially orally revealed “per Christum et apostolos” and then elucidated by miracles. The implication was that the Church had come into being through the oral proclamation of the Gospel, ergo, that she preceded Scripture, and that it was only in a second movement that the Revelation was included in the written books of the Bible and, in a later period, in the Symbol of the Apostles or the Symbol of Athanasius. Later generations of “sacred doctors of the Church” (“sacri doctores ecclesiae”) had continued to develop the sense of Scripture via careful reasoning – made necessary by the “heretical” challenges – by drawing conclusions, derived in a clear and reasoned way from this sensus litteralis, thus establishing definite and unambiguous doctrinal formulations16. Councils and 14. GERSON, De sensu litterali, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 3, p. 335: “Sensus litteralis Sacrae Scripturae fuit primo per Christum et Apostolos revelatus et miraculis elucidatus, deinde fuit per sanguinem martyrum confirmatus, postmodum sacri doctores per rationes suas diligentes contra haereticos diffusius elicuerunt praedictum sensum litteralem et conclusiones ex illo clarius vel probabilius consequentes; postea successit determinatio sacrorum conciliorum ut quod erat doctrinaliter discussum per doctores fieret per Ecclesiam sententialiter definitum”. 15. See e.g. GERSON, De sensu litterali, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 3, p. 336: “If the literal sense of Sacred Scripture is found to be determined and defined in the decrees, decretals and codices, it should be considered as equally relevant for theology and Sacred Scripture as the Symbol of the Apostles … Although the literal sense is in many ways, and especially regarding these things that are necessary for salvation, quite sufficiently expressed in the books of Sacred Scripture, or at least follows on from them in an evident way among the learned, it is nevertheless helpful to treat these senses in public in a concise manner and through determined articles, as for instance we know that it has been [the case] with the Symbol of the Apostles and [that of] Athanasius”. “Sensus litteralis Sacrae Scripturae si reperitur determinatus et decisus in decretis et decretalibus et codicibus, judicandus est ad theologiam et Sacram Scripturam non minus pertinere quam symbolum apostolorum … Sensus litteralis, quamvis sit in multis, praesertim in his quae sunt necessaria ad salutem, satis expressus in libris Sacrae Scripturae, vel ex illis evidenter consequatur apud eruditos in eisdem libris, nihilominus expedivit tales sensus sub certis articulis compendiose se in publicum tradere, quemadmodum de symbolo apostolorum et Athanasii fuisse cognovimus”. 16. Gerson argues for a “praescripta loquendi forma” amongst theologians (GERSON, De sensu litterali, ed. GLORIEUX [n. 2], vol. 3, p. 336, with a quotation of AUGUSTINUS,

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the Pope – in this order17 – have further determined in a formal-juridical way (“sententialiter”), for the entire Church, what the doctores had established “doctrinaliter”. A written account of these ecclesiastical definitions was to be found, continued Gerson, in Church decrees, decretals and codices; these documents being precisely what the “heretics” were mistakenly and erroneously rejecting18. What is interesting for our discussion, however, is the fact that the interpretational traditions had found a written reflection at some point in the history of Christianity. The fact that the oral tradition was unavoidably transcribed into written form19 naturally makes the relationship between scripturality and orality in the Middle Ages quite paradoxical, in the sense that it was never a mere tension between “Scripture” and “unwritten traditions” as it is often presented. Gerson expressed himself in no uncertain terms, when he addressed himself specifically to the “heretics”: Sacred Scripture should not be received “naked” and in an exclusive way, with contempt for the other human traditions; on the contrary, for an authentic understanding of the same [Scripture], the human laws, canons, decrees and glosses of the sacred doctors should be frequently and modestly used20.

The “heretics” imagined they could establish the right understanding of the words of Scripture disconnected from the interpretational tradition(s) that had been handed down by the Fathers (“sensum a sanctis De civitate Dei 10.23, ed. B. DOMBART – A. KALB [CCSL, 47], Turnhout, Brepols, 1955, p. 297 ll. 21-24, where the Church father requires theologians to talk “ad certam regulam”). To stray off from the “termini” that had been determined by the Fathers, soon leads to the ruin of each science and opens the gateway to all kind of errors (Gerson to Pierry d’Ailly, Bruges, 1 April 1400. “Mémoire sur la réforme de l’enseignement théologique, joint à la lettre précédente”, ed. GLORIEUX, vol. 2, p. 26). 17. On Gerson’s conciliarist position, see, amongst other works, F. OAKLEY, Gerson as Conciliarist, in MCGUIRE, A Companion to Jean Gerson (n. 2), 179-204; ID., The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church 1300-1870, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003, 60-110; G. CHRISTIANSON – T.M. IZBICKI – C.M. BELLITTO (eds.), The Church, the Councils, & Reform: The Legacy of the Fifteenth Century, Washington, DC, Catholic University of America Press, 2008, especially the articles by David Zachariah Flanagin (101-121) and Michiel Decaluwe (122-139). 18. GERSON, De sensu litterali, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 3, pp. 335-336; De necessaria communione, ed. GLORIEUX, vol. 10, p. 57. 19. Comp. B. CUMMINGS, ‘The Oral versus the Written’: The Debates over Scripture in More and Tyndale, in Moreana 45 (2008) 15-50, p. 38. 20. GERSON, De necessaria communione, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 10, p. 57: “Scriptura Sacra non ita recipienda est nude et in solidum, contemptis aliis traditionibus hominum, quin debeat ad intelligentiam veram ipsius habendam, juribus humanis et canonibus et decretis et glossis sanctorum doctorum frequenter et humiliter uti”; also De sensu litterali, ed. GLORIEUX, vol. 3, p. 336.

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patribus traditum”), which inevitably led them to a distortion of this understanding21. It is important to remark here that Gerson used the word “tradition” for both the act of handing down, and the content of what was passed from generation to generation within the Church. 3. Doctrines and Customs Handed down in the Church, aside from the Bible? In relation to the aforementioned set of ideas, another of Gerson’s text deserves our attention, namely a passage taken from his Declaratio compendiosa quae veritates sint de necessitate salutis credendae (1416/17): The first degree of truth that should be believed is the canon of the entire Sacred Scripture and of each of the things that are literally expressed in it … The second degree are the truths that are determined by the Church and that after an undoubtable narration of the Apostles were handed down through a continuous succession. For, this authority of the Church is so great, as Augustine says: “I would not have believed the Gospel if the authority of the Church had not compelled me”; inversely, it can even be said: “I would not have believed the Church if the authority of the Gospel had not compelled me”. And in this way, the authority of both confirms each other in several respects22.

Some months later, probably on 26 April 1417, Gerson developed this idea even more clearly in his Libellus articulorum contra Petrum de Luna, when dealing with the subject of the truths which the Church holds, teaches and preaches, and which each man should firmly believe: …these truths are sufficiently contained in Sacred Scripture, especially in the Gospels, or they let themselves be sufficiently and clearly deduced from what is contained in Sacred Scripture; or [these truths] are, being based on the doctrine of the Apostles, further disclosed in succession from generation to generation until the present day, through a (continuous) legitimate observance. Therefore, the Church is called apostolic, since she has her foundation in the doctrine of the Apostles, both in its [oral] wordings and written accounts23. 21. GERSON, De consolatione theologiae, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 9, p. 237. 22. GERSON, Quae veritates, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 6, pp. 181-182: “Primus gradus veritatum credendarum est canon totius Scripturae Sacrae et singulorum quae in ea literaliter asserta sunt … Secundus gradus est veritatum ab Ecclesia determinatarum quae ab indubitata relatione Apostolorum per successionem continuam devenerunt. Est autem haec Ecclesiae auctoritas tanta ut dicit Augustinus: evangelio non crederem nisi me auctoritas Ecclesiae compelleret; quamquam vicissim dici possit: Ecclesiae non crederem si non auctoritas Sacrae Scripturae impelleret. Et ita diversis respectibus auctoritas utraque mutua se confirmat”. 23. GERSON, Libellus articulorum contra Petrum de Luna, ed. GLORIEUX (n. 2), vol. 6, p. 267: “…quae veritates sunt sufficienter in Sacra Scriptura contentae, praesertim in

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In these texts and similar ones, we read that, in addition to what the canonical Scriptures contain, the Church teaches the congregation a number of doctrines that have been handed down by the Apostles to the Church, who, in turn, faithfully passes them to the flock. Gerson refers here to the initially oral relatio by the Apostles, as distinguished from the canonical Scriptures, and thus broadening “the sufficiency of Scriptures in the direction of the apostolic tradition”24. In order to sustain the authority of the Church in this respect, Gerson invokes the aforementioned dictum in Augustine’s Contra epistolam Manichaei quam vocant fundamenti, as well as its variant with “Gospel” and “Church” in inversed order25. Thus, according to the Parisian master, the Scriptures and the oral traditions that were handed down within the Church are each other’s norm, and neither should be treated separately. Therefore, notwithstanding the repeated use of the term “tradition(s)” in the works of Gerson, we must keep in mind that he contends that the two authoritative instances are Sacred Scripture and the Church. For Gerson, “the idea of tradition was largely hidden behind that of the Church”26. II. JACOB LATOMUS AND AN “INCREASINGLY ROBUST” FORMULATION OF THE DOCTRINE ON SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION(S)27 As indicated in the introduction, the views of Jean Gerson regarding the relationship between Scripture and the tradition(s) of the Church would develop into the communis opinio in the fifteenth century and thereafter. This communis opinio was further elaborated by theologians everywhere in Western Europe, but here we will focus on Jacob Latomus28, who Evangelio, vel ex contentis in Sacra Scriptura sufficienter et clare deducuntur; vel per Apostolorum doctrinam successive deductae sunt de generatione in generationem usque ad nos per observationem legitimam. Unde dicitur Ecclesia apostolica quoniam in Apostolorum doctrina fundata est tam verbis quam scriptis”. 24. H. SCHÜSSLER, Der Primat der Heiligen Schrift als theologisches und kanonistisches Problem im Spätmittelalter (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für europäische Geschichte Mainz; Abteilung für abendländische Religionsgeschichte, 86), Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner, 1977, p. 88 (our translation), also pp. 139-144. 25. See above, n. 22. Comp. CUMMINGS, ‘The Oral versus the Written’ (n. 19), p. 25. 26. POSTHUMUS MEYJES, Jean Gerson Apostle of Unity (n. 2), pp. 328-330 (p. 329 for the quotation). 27. The term “robust” is borrowed from CUMMINGS, ‘The Oral Versus the Written’ (n. 19), p. 28. 28. On Jacob Latomus, see especially M. GIELIS, Scholastiek en Humanisme: De kritiek van de Leuvense theoloog Jacobus Latomus op de Erasmiaanse theologiehervorming (TFT-Studies, 23), Tilburg, Tilburg University Press, 1994. The main lines of the dissertation are summarized in ID., L’augustinisme anti-érasmien des premiers

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became one of the leading figures of the Louvain Faculty of Theology. Latomus earned his Master of Arts in Paris, and possibly remained there for the initial years of his theological studies, before moving to Louvain. During the earlier part of his theological career in Louvain, he remained oriented towards the Parisian theological world, where Gerson’s authority still reigned supreme29. Latomus and his colleagues saw themselves confronted with the humanists’ plea to return to the sources – ad fontes! – of the Scriptures and the Church fathers, to which the Louvain theologian responded with his De trium linguarum, et studii Theologici ratione dialogus (Dialogue concerning the Study Programme in the Three [Biblical] Languages and Theology, 1519)30. In addition to the humanists, Luther also formulated his sola scriptura-doctrine, and Latomus reacted to it with his work De quaestionum generibus, quibus ecclesia certat intus et foris (On the Kinds of Questions the Church Disputes both Internally and with People Outside, 1525). Only a year later, he entered into a controversy with Johannes Oecolampadius (1482-1531; Responsio ad Helleboron Ioannis Oecolampadii, 1526) and more than a decade later with Tyndale (Confutationum adversus Guilielmum Tindalum libri tres, 1542). In this context, Latomus’ writings further elaborated on the relationship between (1) the Scriptures, (2a) the interpretational or exegetical tradition of the Church, and (2b) the doctrines, as well as the customs that had been handed down in the Church, aside from the Bible. Although Latomus’ ideas and language are very close to those of Gerson, they contain, on this topic, hardly any direct references to the Parisian chancellor.

controversistes de Louvain Jacques Latomus et Jean Driedo, in M. LAMBERIGTS – L. KENIS (eds.), L’Augustinisme à l’ancienne Faculté de théologie de Louvain (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 111), Leuven, Leuven University Press – Peeters, 1994, 19-61, pp. 19-32, and M. GIELIS, Leuven Theologians as Opponents of Erasmus and of Humanistic Theology, in E. RUMMEL (ed.), Biblical Humanism and Scholasticism in the Age of Erasmus (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 9), Leiden – Boston, MA, Brill, 2008, 197-214. Also E. RUMMEL, Erasmus and His Catholic Critics, vol. 1 (Bibliotheca humanistica & reformatorica, 45), Nieuwkoop, De Graaf, 1989, 72-87. All references are to the following Opera Omnia-edition: Jacobus LATOMUS, Opera, quae praecipue adversus horum temporum haereses eruditissime, ac singulari iudicio conscripsit…, ed. Jacobus LATOMUS JR. – Ruard TAPPER, Leuven, Bartholomaeus Gravius et al., 1550. 29. See also Y. MAZOUR-MATUSEVICH, The Reception of Jean Gerson’s (1363-1429) Legacy and Authority in Early Modern Europe (16th Century), unpublished Doctoral Diss., Histoire et Civilisation, Paris, EHESS, 2018, esp. pp. 465-466. 30. LATOMUS, De trium linguarum, et studii Theologici ratione dialogus (n. 28), ff. 157v – 169v.

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1. Scriptures As a point of departure, we will examine a text from Latomus’ quite early work, the Dialogus: God’s law had first been written with God’s finger in the hearts of men, who have handed it [the law] down through the voice as a mediator [i.e. orally] to the authors, … Subsequently, the same law had been entrusted to the dead sheets of parchment, by the persons whom divine providence has destined to that aim31.

Latomus was convinced that a theologian should not cling to the specific words of the Bible. The content of the faith (res) was broader, clearer and more fundamental than its specific formulation in the text of Scripture (verba). God had written the original Revelation in the heart of the Apostles. Although the (biblical32) metaphor Latomus used in this regard, the “evangelium scriptum in tabulis cordis hominum”, is borrowed from “the realm of the written and of the reading process”, he emphasized that this initial communication of the faith transcended every specific language (be it written or spoken), and consisted of mere internal, clear and lucid concepts, an “oratio mentalis”33. The Apostles had in turn proclaimed the Gospel to the Church and had preached it in a more evocative language to the common people. As a consequence, the primitive Church believed in the evangelical truth before a single letter of the Gospels had been written down. At an early stage, however, the evangelists, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, had written down the Revelation on parchment and in material letters, as evidenced in the above-quoted passage.

31. LATOMUS, Dialogus (n. 30), f. 166r C: “Lex Dei primitus in hominum cordibus digito Dei scripta est, qui eam voce interprete authoribus tradiderunt, … Deinde eadem lex etiam mortuis chartis commissa est, per homines quos divina providentia huc destinavit”; f. 163r A: “Movebatur quod primi qui in corde evangelium acceperunt, verbis nullius linguae receperunt, sed in conceptibus naturaliter significantibus, qui sunt iidem apud omnes, et omni lingua pronunciari possunt. Praeterea quod evangelium praedicatum sit in omni lingua priusquam hebraicae aut graece scriberetur” [All translations of Latomus’ works are ours]. 32. See inter alia Prov 7,3; Jer 31,33; Rom 2,15; 2 Cor 3,2-3. 33. The priority of the “verbum in corde” above the external word, as well as the idea that the internal word does not belong to an actual (written or spoken) language, but is a “verbum nullius linguae”, has possibly been inspired by AUGUSTINUS, De Trinitate 15.10.17 – 15.16.26, ed. W.J. MOUNTAIN – F. GLORIE (CCSL, 50A), Turnhout, Brepols, 1968, pp. 483 l. 1 – 501 l. 36. Also: AUGUSTINUS, Sermo 288. In natali Joannis Baptistae. De voce et verba, ed. J.-P. MIGNE (PL, 38), Paris – Montrouge, Migne, 1841, col. 13041306.

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And here, the Primitive Church already played a determinative role: “…our four Gospels had been examined according to that rule [the Gospel written on the tables of the heart of the faithful] and had been received, whereas others which improperly held the same title, were rejected”34. Since this Revelation had circulated in the Primitive Church, it was the Church who was able to determine which writings were authentic and which were not, in other words, to judge about the canonicity of the biblical books. Latomus insisted that the Gospel and the entire New Testament consist of the oldest written testimony of the “evangelium in corde”, which gives it a peculiarly authoritative place. He confirmed that Scripture contains the inspired Word of God, which sets a norm of truth for the Church and its authorities, who were bound by its essential content35. Latomus shared this high esteem for the Scriptures with Gerson, as well as with several other theologians from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries36. On the other hand, Scripture was said to contain many figures of speech and metaphors, and was therefore considered obscure and ambiguous in places. Moreover, neither all the words and deeds of Jesus, nor the whole preaching and (sacramental) practice of the Apostles, were preserved in Scripture. The original Revelation “written down in the heart of the believers”, was broader and deeper than what was written in Scripture and continues to be passed down in Church as a “depositum fidei”37. 2. The Interpretational or Exegetical Tradition of the Church Therefore, the Church had another important role, namely to interpret the Scriptures authoritatively according to the original Revelation, which she preserves and hands down, as Latomus contended in De quaestionum generibus (1525): “When one or another scriptural passage allows for several senses, and it is uncertain what the author had precisely in mind, this [sense] should without any doubt be accepted which the use and 34. LATOMUS, Dialogus (n. 30), f. 163r A-B: “…nostra quatuor evangelia ad eam regulam [= evangelium scriptum in tabulis cordis fidelium] examinata fuisse, quando aliis, quae eodem titulo falso ferebantur reiectis, recepta sunt…”; also Dialogus, f. 166v C. 35. LATOMUS, Dialogus (n. 30), ff. 160v C-D; 166v B-C. 36. MCGRATH, The Intellectual Origins (n. 1), pp. 120-121; also D’ONOFRIO, History of Theology, vol. 2 (n. 1), pp. 522-523. 37. LATOMUS, Dialogus (n. 30), ff. 165v A-B; 166v B-C: “…nihil tamen prohibet quaedam Domini dicta et facta, aut alioqui divinitus ad ecclesiae utilitatem primitus revelata in nostro canone non haberi, ut ex fine evangelii Ioannis intelligitur, et Paulus allegat Dominum dixisse”; also f. 163r D.

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authority of the Church considers as hers”. Evidently, an important principle concerns an interpretation of obscure scriptural passages on the basis of more discernible passages; with such approach constituting, according to Latomus, the first level of the interpretation “to which the authority of the Church is adhered”. Latomus corroborated his position by a well-known reference to Augustine, who “in the third book of the doctrina Christiana equates these two [viz. the Scriptures and the interpretation by the Church]”38. We have already found these ideas in Latomus’ Dialogus, where he also emphasized that the Church’s interpretation of Scripture “ad certam regulam” is the more important, as opposed to the “heretics”, who simply follow their own understandings. Therefore, although “heretics” may have the same Scriptures as the Catholics, they remain estranged from the genuine “sensus evangelicus”, since they follow the “sensus sui capitis”39. 3. Doctrines and Customs Handed down in the Church, aside from the Bible However, there is not merely Scripture and its interpretation in the Church to consider, Latomus argued in the Dialogus. There are also “the things relating to the mysteries of faith, the sacraments, and the divine things, that had been handed down without writing, by Christ through the Apostles, and their successors, things not explicitly to be found in the canonical books”40. He contended this position more elaborately some years later in De quaestionum generibus (1525): 38. LATOMUS, De quaestionum generibus, quibus ecclesia certat intus et foris (n. 28), f. 91r D – 91v A: “Quando aliquis scripturae locus plures sensus admittit, et incertum est, quis magis sit de mente authoris, ille indubitanter est acceptandus qui pro se habet ecclesiae usum et authoritatem. Patet, quia ille sensus est acceptandus, cui alius scripturae locus clarus suffragatur. Igitur et ille, cui authoritas ecclesiae adiungitur. Ista enim duo aequiparat Augustinus tertio de doctrina Christiana”; 91v D: “Quare vobis credi vultis unum aut alterum scripturae locum certo modo interpretantibus potius, quàm aliis aliter explicantibus? quia nobis nolimus potius quàm aliis credi, nisi habeamus expressam scripturam quae interpretationem confirmet, necessariam rationem ex per se notis demonstratis, vel creditis, sumptam, aut ecclesiae usum vel authoritatem, quòd si utraque expositio omnia haec, vel duo, vel unum ex istis habeat, utramque recipimus, nec altera alteram infirmat vel excludit”; reference is to AUGUSTINUS, De doctrina Christiana 3.26.37, 27.38, and 29.39, ed. J. MARTIN (CCSL, 32), Turnhout, Brepols, 1962, pp. 99 l. 1 – 100 l. 9. 39. LATOMUS, Dialogus (n. 30), f. 163r A-B: “Addebat [senex] in evangelicis quaestionibus ultimam resolutionem esse ad evangelium scriptum in tabulis cordis fidelium, … Secundo quòd videret haereticos (ut de Arrianis testatur Athanasius & de Pelagianis constat) iisdem omnino codicibus uti cum catholicis, qui tamen legem evangelicam non habent, sed à sensu evangelico alieni sui capitis sensum sequuntur”; also ff. 163v A; 164r D. 40. LATOMUS, Dialogus (n. 30), f. 166v A-B: “…de mysteriis, et sacramentis, et rebus divinis, quaedam a Christo per Apostolos, et eorum successores per manus sine scripto tradita, quae expresse in canone non habentur…”. F. 166v B-C is quoted above (n. 37).

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The Church holds that a lot has been handed down and revealed to her, on God’s part, that is not explicitly contained in the canonical Scriptures … And I believe that this custom [about not re-baptizing those who had been baptized by the heretics] ultimately comes from apostolic tradition, just as many elements are not found in their [the Apostles’] letters, neither in the councils of their successors, but are nevertheless observed across the Universal Church, and are therefore believed as having been handed down and commanded by the same [Apostles]. For many other things, that by tradition are observed in the churches, may claim the authority of written law … The authority of the Church in matters of faith, sacraments, and mores is such that it is not permitted to contradict her, even if it is not Scripture that demonstrates that which is proved41.

From this and other passages, it is evident that Latomus, against the Lutheran sola scriptura-principle, accepted that some doctrinal teachings, and especially some practices relating to the administration of the sacraments and moral prescriptions observed in the Church, originate from the Lord himself, or were preached by the Apostles, and were passed down “from hand to hand” (“per manus”) by the Apostles’ successors, without necessarily being preserved in any scriptural account in the canonical Gospels (“sine scripto tradita”). Although these ideas may sound quite similar to those observed in Gerson, Latomus is far more explicit in his acceptance of a group of liturgical and disciplinary customs, and even some tenets of the faith, that were orally handed down in the Church from the Apostolic Era, without any explicit reference in Scripture. Here we see an evolution, provoked by the Reformers’ sustained sola scripturaprinciple, which is discernible among various sixteenth-century theologians’ thinking42. In the above-mentioned passage from De quaestionum 41. LATOMUS, De quaestionum generibus (n. 38), f. 91r A-C: “Multa tenet ecclesia sibi divinitus tradita, et revelata, quae expresse non habentur in scriptura canonica … Quam consuetudinem [de non rebaptizandis illis qui ab haereticis baptizati erant] credo ex Apostolica traditione venientem, sicut multa non inveniuntur in literis eorum, neque in conciliis posteriorum, & tamen quia custodiuntur per universam ecclesiam, non nisi ab ipsis tradita et commendata creduntur. Nam et multa alia quae per traditionem in ecclesiis observantur, authoritatem sibi scriptae legis usurpaverunt … Ecclesiae authoritas tanta est in fide, sacramentis, et moribus, ut ei contradicere non liceat, etiam si scriptura non ostendatur per quam probetur” (comp. Responsio ad Helleboron Ioannis Oecolampadii [n. 28], f. 125v A); also De quaestionum generibus, f. 89v A: “…sive illud praeceptum sit divinum in sacris scripturis expressum, vel per traditionem, et quasi per manus a Christo Apostolis, et per Apostolos ecclesiae traditum sicut pleraque circa sacramenta divinae traditionis sunt, et non humanae institutionis licet in scriptura sacra non habeantur…”. 42. This shows how difficult it is to maintain the well-known twofold distinction that Heiko Oberman made in The Harvest of Medieval Theology, and which divided late medieval theologians into adherents of either Tradition I or Tradition II. Tradition I, or “single-source” tradition, claims the material sufficiency of Scripture, but largely accepts its formal insufficiency, in the sense that the exegetical tradition of the Church should

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generibus, but also and especially in his Responsio ad Helleboron Ioannis Oecolampadii (1526), Latomus generally uses the noun “customs” (consuetudines) here. Regarding the terminology, he reserves derivatives of the verb “tradere” for the act of transmission itself. Quite peculiar is that Latomus seldom uses this verb in the context of scriptural interpretation by the Church – in contrast to Gerson who did use the word in that sense – but only in the context when mention is made of the doctrines of the faith and the sacraments that are handed down, apart from the Scriptures. In this light, we may consider it as a further and logical evolution that Latomus used the noun “traditio” or “traditiones” more frequently in his later works, rendering the word’s meaning to encompass the notion of customs that had been handed down. This evolution becomes clear in his Confutationum adversus Guilielmum Tindalum libri tres (1542) and his Adversus Librum Erasmi De Sarcienda Ecclesiae Concordia (unfinished but written after 1533)43. It is possible that this development took place under the influence of Latomus’ colleague John Driedo, who became renowned in the history of theology, thanks to his authoritative development of the doctrine of Scripture and tradition(s), especially via his ground breaking work De ecclesiasticis scripturis et dogmatibus, first published in 153344. show how to interpret the Scriptures. Proponents of Tradition II emphasize the material, as well as formal, insufficiency of Scripture, in that they accept that several doctrines, especially moral, sacramental and disciplinary customs, have been handed down within the Church, apart from the Scriptures, and thus constitute another, or second, source of Revelation. The case of Gerson, Latomus, and others shows us that the theological positions at the end of the Middle Ages were far more multifaceted than can be surmised under the two types, namely Tradition I or Tradition II: “Oberman’s two traditions should be seen as points on a line rather than simple alternatives”. In comparison to Gerson, Latomus should be considered as an adherent of “an increasingly robust form of Tradition II in response to Luther”, a conclusion Cummings already drew with regard to John Fischer (CUMMINGS, ‘The Oral Versus the Written’ [n. 19], pp. 25-29; GIELIS, Scholastiek en Humanisme [n. 28], pp. 267 and 279-280, with a reference to H.A. OBERMAN, The Harvest of Medieval Theology, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 365-393). 43. LATOMUS, Confutationum adversus Guilielmum Tindalum libri tres (n. 28), f. 193v C-D: “Etenim in talibus traditio aequivalet scripturae. Non enim omnia ad fidem, religionem, et sacramenta spectantia, expresse habentur in scripturis…”; comp. f. 194r A; Adversus Librum Erasmi de Sarcienda Ecclesiae Concordia (n. 28), f. 173r D – 173v D: “Nec obstat quod pleraque pertinentia ad ipsa per traditionem sine scriptura accepta fuerint, quia non minor est eiusmodi traditionis authoritas, quam divinae scripturae…”; comp. ff. 175v D; [181r] A. 44. We refer here to [Ioannes DRIEDO,] Operum D. Ioannis Driedonis a Turnhout…, ed. Ruard TAPPER. Vol. 1: De ecclesiasticis scripturis et dogmatibus Libri quattuor, Leuven, Bartholomaeus Gravius, 1556, ff. 238v D – 239r A: “Amplius autem ex supra dictis manifestum, ab ecclesia posse esse alicuius catholicae veritatis verum testimonium, quod nusquam in Sacra Scriptura est traditum, et posse esse traditiones sanctas ex necessitate credendas, quae in sacris libris canonicis iam aeditis non continetur, sicut catholicae

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On several occasions, Latomus enlisted for the attention of his readers and adversaries various tenets of faith and “customs” that were solidly handed down in the tradition of the Church, without their being included in Scripture. In his choice of such doctrines and “customs”, he had self-evidently a predilection for those traditions that were rejected by the Reformers, as he did in De quibusdam articulis in ecclesia controversis opusculum (first published in the 1550 Opera Omnia), where he discusses Mary’s lasting virginity, her Assumption, and even the Immaculate Conception; as well as the number and the essence of the sacraments (especially the contested traditions regarding the Mass), prayers and intercessions for the deceased; and the cult of the saints and their relics (“ossa et reliquias sanctorum”) etc. Latomus argued that all these “customs” (consuetudines), which were observed universally in the Church, could be traced back to the time of the Apostles and therefore should be followed by the entire Church, even if there had been no Scriptures at all45. We find here an attempt to attribute an ancient heritage, viz. apostolic origin, to these doctrines and practices46 – an exercise that was contested by humanists, Reformers, and later by the majority of the Council fathers at Trent, and that can be seriously questioned from a historical point of view47. veritates erant sub Apostolorum temporibus, cum nondum essent evangelistarum et Apostolorum codices”; also ff. 242v D; 266v A-B etc. 45. See e.g. LATOMUS, De quaestionum generibus (n. 38), f. 91r A-C; Adversus Librum Erasmi de Sarcienda (n. 43), ff. 173v A – 182r A; and De quibusdam articulis in ecclesia controversis opusculum (n. 28), ff. 199r C: “Sed etiam si nusquam in scripturis veteribus omnino legeretur, non parva hac consuetudine claret authoritas, ubi in precibus sacerdotis, quae domino Deo ad eius altare fundantur, locum suum habet etiam commendatio mortuorum, Quaequidem consuetudo ab ipsis Apostolis sumpsit initium”; 203r C-D: “…ossa & reliquias sanctorum esse venerandas … idem convincitur authoritate totius ecclesiae catholicae, quae ita tenet, & tenuit ab initio usque in praesens: ergo ita tenendum est, etiam si deesset expressum scripturae testimonium”; 205v A: “Et hic adverte evangelium tametsi scripto traditum sit, non tamen totum scriptum esse sed bonam partem eius per traditionem acceptam”; also f. 200r A. In this regard, we should nuance McGrath’s words: “Thus, as de Vooght points out, the idea of ‘unwritten tradition’ tended to be employed in subsidiary areas of Christian theology – for example, in relation to the practice of extreme unction, the consecration of the chalice, and the validity of the indulgences. This ‘source’ was not used, for instance, to establish the Mariological doctrines that represent one of the areas of genuine theological innovation or development within the medieval period” (McGRATH, The Intellectual Origins [n. 1], p. 144, with a reference to P. DE VOOGHT, Les sources de la doctrine chrétienne d’après les théologiens du XIVe siècle et du début du XVe, Brugge, Desclée de Brouwer, 1954, p. 186 n. 4). 46. See, amongst others, LATOMUS, De quaestionum generibus (n. 38), f. 91r A-B, quoted above (n. 41); Adversus Librum Erasmi de Sarcienda (n. 42), f. 175v D: “…per quorum [maiorum nostrorum] manus accepimus de praedictis traditionem Apostolicam”. 47. Compare the notion of “invented traditions” in the famous book edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, and which are defined as “‘[t]raditions’ which appear or

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Latomus, like Gerson, considered the authority of the Church equally decisive to that of Sacred Scripture when it comes to the right interpretation of obscure passages, as well as to the determination of customs (and some tenets of the faith) that are handed down in Church, without any written account in Scripture. The same Spirit who had inspired the biblical writers continued to assist the Church so that it was inconceivable that a discrepancy could arise between what was written in Scripture and the further developments in the tradition of the Church48. The Church acts as the guarantor of the tradition, and Latomus considered both notions as interchangeable, to the degree that he mentions in his works, alongside Scripture, in one instance, the authority of the tradition, and, even more often, the authority of the Church49. A last word should be devoted to Latomus’ viewpoint regarding the “witnesses” or “monuments” of the tradition50, which is extremely interesting, since it confronts us again with the paradox, viz. that the oral tradition had received written codification and thus authentication at several stages of the transmission process in the Church. In this regard, Latomus referred to the Apostles and the Fathers; with the latter group divided into veteres and recentiores. He further argued that the scholastics of the Late Middle Ages were the most accurate when it came to interpreting Scripture and unfolding the tradition of the Church51. claim to be old”, but “are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented”. It is further remarked “…insofar as there is such reference to a historic past, the peculiarity of ‘invented’ traditions is that the continuity with it is largely factitious”. Hobsbawm and Ranger’s book however sees the phenomenon foremost at work in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (E. HOBSBAWM – T. RANGER [eds.], The Invention of Tradition [Past and Present Publications], Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983; repr. 1996, pp. 1-2). 48. LATOMUS, Dialogus (n. 30), f. 163r D: “Ego vobiscum sum & caetera, & illud non te deseram: & exequitur usque in mundi finem opus aeterni sacerdotii. Ita illud esse divinum, quod Deus semel corpori suo quod est ecclesia dedit: continuat suam legem semper scribens, & scriptam conservans in suo mystico corpore, è quo alius exit, alius intrat & suam quisque defectibilitatem habet: totum verò à spirituali vita, & sacrae legis vera intelligentia nunquam deseritur”; see also De quaestionum generibus (n. 37), f. 91r B, quoted above (n. 41); 91v D: “Nam Christianus debet ecclesiae catholicae, quae est columna & firmamentum veritatis, eam reverentiam, ut proprium sensum captivet in obsequium Christi & ecclesiae catholicae, quae spiritu Christi regitur, per quem spiritum à Christo accepit verum scripturarum intellectum”. 49. LATOMUS, Contra articulos quosdam Martini Lutheri a Theologis Lovan. damnatos (1521) (n. 28), f. 36: “…ex apostolicis & evangelicis literis & fundatissima ecclesiae authoritate loquuntur”; Apologia pro Dialogo (1525/1550) (n. 28), f. 170v B: “Attende regulam [fidei] habere duas partes, videlicet scripturam, & ecclesiae authoritatem”. 50. LATOMUS, Dialogus (n. 30), f. 166r C – 166v D. 51. LATOMUS, Dialogus (n. 30), f. 166v D: “…quia neque plus sibi fidei haberi postulaverunt [scholastici], quam probabili ratione, aut novi vel veteris testamenti authoritate probaverunt, supponentes tamen de mysteriis, et sacramentis, et rebus divinis, quaedam a

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It was, however, up to the General Council and the Pope – as the most important “instruments” of the teaching authority – to imperatively determine the tenets of the faith and even to solemnly promulgate them52. III. LAWYERS AND LEGAL SCHOLARS ON WRITTEN LAW AND UNWRITTEN CUSTOMS The theologians’ defense of the consuetudines against criticisms based on the sola scriptura-principle may be compared to evolutions with which lawyers and legal scholars had to deal in the fields of both civil and canon law. Early modern jurists increasingly had to give thought to the statute of the consuetudines – using the very same word – vis-à-vis written legislative corpora that had the ambition to be more comprehensive and foundational, such as Roman Law or the early regal statutes in England, and that became instrumental in the hands of sovereigns of nation-states, aiming to govern their realms on a more centralized basis. In what follows I will develop this thesis, primarily relying on the studies of consuetudines by Emily Kadens (professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law), and publications by Anthony Musson (professor of legal history at the University of Exeter). According to Musson, in medieval “areas of local jurisdiction, such as urban centers, manors or other franchise regions … customary practices formed the basis of law…”53. Such consuetudines were characterized by three elements, as medieval jurist Bartolus de Saxoferrato (1313-1357)54 Christo per Apostolos, et eorum successores per manus sine scripto tradita, quae expresse in canone non habentur”; comp. f. 165r B-C: “… scholastici certis fidei regulis & sanae doctrinae dogmatibus inconcussis freti, nudis & apertis verbis tradunt, veteres autem id raro agunt, excepto uno, Augustino cuius sententia est, nos a certam regulam loqui debere ut piarum aurium offensio vitetur”, with an allusion to Augustinus, De civitate Dei 10.23 (CCSL, 47), p. 297 ll. 21-26. 52. LATOMUS, Dialogus (n. 30), f. 160v C-D: “Quin imo ipse Papa, generale concilium, vel ipsa ecclesia dum … rem determinat, quid putas intuebatur? … Lex enim evangelica ipsius Papae, consilii, vel ecclesiae voluntate non ducitur, sed ducit, non regitur sed regit, non sequitur sed praecedit”; Contra articulos quosdam Martini Lutheri a Theologis Lovan. damnatos (n. 48), f. 3r [epistola dedicatoria]: “…non poterat quòd Romanorum Pontificum, vel sacrorum conciliorum authoritatem non recipiant, sed tantum scripturae, Germanum & nativum sensum…”. 53. A. MUSSON, Law and Text: Legal Authority and Judicial Accessibility in the Late Middle Ages, in J. CRICK – A. WALSHAM (eds.), The Uses of Print and Script, 1300-1700, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 95-115, p. 96. 54. Bartolus DE SAXOFERRATO, Commentaria in primam digesti veteriscum additionibus (Opera Omnia, 1), Lyon, Dionysius Harsæus [Denis de Harsy], ex castigatione D. Alexandri Losæi [Alessandro Loseo], 1552, ff. 20v – 21r, par. 6: “Consuetudo est ius

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and others would contend, following the Roman definition: (1) the act had been done repeatedly over time; (2) it was observed during an indeterminate lengthy period; and (3) the people engaging in the act did so out of a (psychological) sense of legal obligation55. In other words, just as in theology, consuetudines in the juridical sense were practices and rules that belonged to the sphere of oral tradition, but that had received legal force due to the fact that the community maintained that they had observed the custom over a long period of time and therefore felt bound to do so56. In this case, as in the case of the religious traditions, the oral status of the consuetudines did not mean that these customs had never been written down. Collections of law actually existed, but, according to Musson, they “represent ‘an index of governing mentalities’ rather than the strictures of written law codes”57. Due to their oral character, with the concomitant indefiniteness and uncertainty regarding their origin and transmission history, customs were challenged by the concept of the law as having been written, codified and systematized. The growing concern with law as a written text58 had gained momentum in Western history after the rediscovery of the Justinian Code, at the end of the eleventh century; with the University of Bologna even having been set up as a devoted place to study it. The study of, and fascination with, Roman Law in Bologna (and even its “historicist” approach developed in renaissance Bourges59) convinced jurists that many non scriptum, moribus et usibus populi vel a maiori parte ipsius ratione initiatum et continuatum et introductum habens vim legis”. 55. See the summary in E. KADENS, Introduction: Lessons from the History of Custom, in Texas International Law Journal 48/3 (2013) 349-355, here p. 350; comp. ID., Custom’s Two Bodies, in K.L. JANSEN – G. GELTNER – A.E. LESTER (eds.), Center and Periphery: Studies on Power in the Medieval World in Honor of William Chester Jordan (Later Medieval Europe), Leiden – Boston, MA, Brill, 2013, 239-248, esp. p. 240; ID., Custom’s Past, in C.A. BRADLEY (ed.), Custom’s Future: International Law in a Changing World, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016, 11-33, pp. 12-13, also 21. Reference text for this: F. GÉNY, Méthode d’interprétation et sources en droit privé positif: Essai critique, 2 vols., 2nd rev. ed., Paris, Librairie générale de Droit & de Jurisprudence, ²1954, vol. 1, pp. 355-366. 56. “Assigning it a longstanding history, whether true or not, increased the custom’s authority” (KADENS, Custom’s Past [n. 55], p. 22). 57. MUSSON, Law and Text (n. 53), pp. 96-97. 58. Comp. MUSSON, Law and Text (n. 53), p. 114. 59. Alister McGrath, in the wake of Deborah Kuller Shuger, has also pointed to this engagement with “the original legal sources of antiquity” in the sixteenth century, but explained the phenomenon along somewhat different lines: “The Older Italian school (mos italicus) was based upon the glosses and commentaries of the medieval jurists, whereas the rival French school, developing at Bourges in the early sixteenth century (mos gallicus) appealed directly to the original legal sources of antiquity”. According to McGrath, it was the latter school that gave expression to “the new humanist approach to Scripture, in which

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Roman Law statutes were also appropriate to regulate legal protection of property, as well as the equality of legal subjects and their wills. Roman Law was increasingly used as a basis of legal practice across large parts of continental Europe, and in Scotland. The process was actively supported by many kings and princes, who were provided with a written instrument for a more universal and State-enacted legislation. By the middle of the sixteenth century, this rediscovered Roman Law dominated the legal practice of many European countries, and subsequently became the basis of common law60. The English system of common law developed in a different way from that of the continent. It has been argued that there was not much need for an authoritative book of law comparable to Roman Law, and thus legal practice continued to be tied to the courts and the juries administering justice there. Nevertheless, Musson has argued that in England “reign statutes were increasingly committed to writing”, with the famous “Magna Carta perceptually [being accorded] pride of place as the first statute”, and followed “with certain enactments of Henry III, Edward I and Edward II” in the thirteenth and early-fourteenth centuries61. English judges from the fourteenth century onwards increasingly gave such statutes precedence over customary law. In all cases, we see “a growing power of textual law”, another manifestation of the increasing importance of the written word in the late Middle Ages62, with Roman Law even attaining stature of biblical proportions for continental modern jurists. Textual law came to provide a norm against which the authority and validity of largely orally transmitted customary law was questioned. It induced local juridical authorities to codify their customs as well, including aldermanic regulations, charters being granted to a town, and the establishing of larger

the original text is addressed directly”. See MCGRATH, The Intellectual Origins (n. 1), p. 133 and D.K. SHUGER, The Renaissance Bible: Scholarship, Sacrifice, and Subjectivity, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1994, p. 61. 60. KADENS, Custom’s Past (n. 55), p. 30; SHUGER, The Renaissance Bible (n. 59), p. 61. Comp. A. GOURON, Coutume contre loi chez les premiers glossateurs, in ID. – A. RIGAUDIÈRE (eds.), Renaissance du pouvoir législatif et genèse de l’État (Publications de la Société d’Histoire du Droit et des Institutions des Anciens Pays de Droit Écrit, 3), Montpellier, Société d’Histoire du Droit et des Institutions des Anciens Pays de Droit Écrit, 1988, 117-130. 61. MUSSON, Law and Text (n. 53), p. 99. See also M.T. CLANCHY, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307, Oxford – Cambridge, MA, Blackwell, ²1993, pp. 32-36. 62. MUSSON, Law and Text (n. 53), pp. 105 and 110.

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collections, often called “customals”63. In England, this took shape in manorial and urban jurisdictions recording their customs and especially the pleadings and decisions of court cases, in written form. The interaction between orality and scripturality in the sphere of law is also evident in the words of the sixteenth-century Bruges lawyer Joost de Damhoudere (1507-1581): For sure, civil law is twofold. First, there is written law, secondly there is unwritten law. The former consists of what the Roman emperors, together with their jurists and counsellors established and decreed as to be observed, that which Diocletian, Antoninus Pius, Justinian, Theodosius, Arcadius left to us in their writings. Unwritten law, however, is those statutes, ordinances, public edicts, and received customs which were made use of in individual regions and (were) established in these regions as convenient or necessary64.

De Damhoudere made a distinction between written and unwritten Law, “iura scripta” and “iura non scripta”65. The codification, however, of the unwritten law was often aimed at strengthening its legal force, namely against pressure and criticisms that were voiced by jurists basing themselves upon legal systems with a universal claim. As Kadens put it: “It is also through books that we can see the medieval world view of law crumbling and a new renaissance and humanist world view emerging”66. The uncertainty of customs was not only tamed by its codification, it also received confirmation from judicial sentences in which witnesses played an important role, something especially stressed by Emily Kadens. In particular, when someone disputed or violated the custom, the issue came before a sanctioning body – a court or a Lord – who had to decide 63. In the words of Kadens, behavior-custom became rule-custom: “[custom was placed] into a legal framework that made sense in his [the trained lawyer or legal scholar] book-learned understanding of law and his life experience of custom” (KADENS, Custom’s Past [n. 55], pp. 21, also 30). Comp. MUSSON, Law and Text (n. 53), p. 100. 64. Joost DE DAMHOUDERE, Praxis rerum civilium, praetoribus, propraetoribus, consulibus, proconsulibus, magistratibus…, Antwerp, Johannes Bellerus, 1569, p. 211, par. 8-10: “Haec autem iura civilia sunt duplicia. Alia enim sunt iura scripta, alia iura non scripta. Iura scripta sunt quae Imperatores Romani cum suis iurisperitis, & consiliarijs condiderunt, & servanda statuerunt, qualia sunt quae Diocletianus, Antoninus pius, Iustinianus, Theodosius, Arcadius, suis scriptis nobis reliquerunt. Iura autem non scripta, sunt statuta, ordinationes, publica edicta, & receptae consuetudines, quae passim in suis singulis regionibus usurpantur, & iuxta earundem regionum commoditatem aut necessitatem sunt constituta”. Comp. the translation in KADENS, Introduction: Lessons from the History of Custom (n. 55), p. 351. 65. KADENS, Introduction: Lessons from the History of Custom (n. 55), p. 351. 66. KADENS, The Law Through the Book. Public lecture at the “International Summit of the Book” held at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, December 6, 2012. Available at [starting at 3:01:00]: http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec= 5666, M03:27:41 (accessed 2 October 2019).

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whether a custom should be accepted or rejected67. To prove the reliability of a custom, the court summoned several credible witnesses, who had to testify that the behavior had been repeated over a requisite amount of time, which then in turn would demonstrate the community’s consent to be legally bound by such custom68. This reminds us of two things from the sphere of theology: The first is Latomus’ invocation of the writings of the Church fathers and medieval theologians as key witnesses to the antiquity and universality of consuetudines or traditiones. The second is that Latomus did so in answering to those humanists and especially Reformers, who set aside those witnesses as unreliable, on the basis of the sola scriptura-principle. CONCLUSION Both theologians and jurists were challenged to debate whether orally transmitted consuetudines should be considered as authentic and trustworthy expressions of the community’s fundamental beliefs and rules, or whether these beliefs and rules should primarily be based on written sources of old, be those the Bible, Roman Law or another foundational collection. Therefore, the question of orality and scripturality was not limited to the theological sphere, but also preoccupied the world of lawyers and jurists, even though the exact nature of the mutual influences between these two domains of knowledge may need further research. Kuller Shugar has anyway pointed to the “deep respect for Roman Law” among the early Reformers Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin, the latter being a trained jurist69. In more general terms, we may consider this debate as an exponent of the transition that took place in the Late Middle Ages from a pre-modern culture, which was predominantly oral, to a modern society, where the written word received increasing, and sometimes almost exclusive, 67. KADENS, Introduction: Lessons from the History of Custom (n. 55), p. 353; ID., Custom’s Two Bodies (n. 55), p. 246. 68. KADENS, Custom’s Two Bodies (n. 55), p. 239; ID., Custom’s Past (n. 55), pp. 23, also 25-26. Kadens, however, touches upon the fact that witnesses often interpreted customs in deviant ways. Her favorite example in this regard is a custom in the town of Douai, in the Southern Netherlands, that maintained “that a testament made by a sick person was invalid unless the sick testator was able to cross the drainage ditch in the middle of the street without assistance”. She notes how divergent interpretations of “crossing the ditch” might have been and how liable they might be to manipulation, especially when a testament was litigated (KADENS, Custom’s Two Bodies, pp. 242-243). 69. SHUGER, The Renaissance Bible (n. 59), pp. 61-62.

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authority70. For long periods during the Middle Ages, a large part of the population chiefly relied upon oral transmissions of stories, beliefs and rituals, as well as customs that regulated life in common: “The fact is that in the Middle Ages the written word was a small island in a sea of oral literature…”, as the famous cultural historian Aron Gurevich remarked in his book Medieval Popular Culture71. In the later Middle Ages, scripturality and the requirement for sound textual foundations won the day, whereas oral transmissions were viewed as less valuable, unless their reliability and validity could be proven. Although we should be wary of viewing orality and textuality as polar opposites – especially considering that an important part of the so-called unwritten consuetudines had been codified over the centuries and had received, via this process, a kind of authentication – all late-medieval social institutions were taken in by a fascination for the written word, which went along with an increased production of manuscripts, and which was in turn significantly strengthened by the invention of printing72. The transition from orality to scripturality was of course the result of, and accompanied by, an increase in literacy, both in Latin and the vernacular, especially in the urbanized regions of Europe. One further consideration, dealt with in the literature, is very important for our topic: Increasing literacy and direct access to the written sources of Western civilization stirred in people a critical force that eventually brought about cognitive, social, and institutional changes, as Leif Melve demonstrates in his overview article Literacy – Aurality – Orality 73. In this regard, the term “critical literacy” is often used74. It is clear that criticism of the consuetudines of the Church, founded in the Bible and its content, fits in with the afore-sketched dynamics, as the historical examples of Wyclif

70. On the complex transition from the “oral” Middle Ages to the “textual” Modern Era, see M. CHINCA – Ch. YOUNG, Orality and Literacy in the Middle Ages: A Conjunction and Its Consequences, in ID., Orality and Literacy in the Middle Ages: Essays on a Conjunction and Its Consequences in Honour of D.H. Green (Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, 12), Turnhout, Brepols, 2005, 1-15; L. MELVE, Literacy – Aurality – Orality: A Survey of Recent Research into the Orality/Literacy Complex of the Latin Middle Ages (600-1500), in Symbolae Osloenses 78/1 (2003) 143-197; W.J. ONG, Orality, Literacy, and Medieval Textualization, in New Literary History 16/1 (1984) 1-12. See there for further literature. 71. A. GUREVICH, Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception, trans. J.M. BAK – P.A. HOLLINGSWORTH (Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture, 14), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988; repr. 1995, p. 4. 72. MUSSON, Law and Text (n. 53), p. 114. 73. MELVE, Literacy – Aurality – Orality (n. 70), p. 182. 74. E. MORRELL, Critical Literacy and Urban Youth: Pedagogies of Access, Dissent, and Liberation, New York – London, Routledge, 2008, pp. 36-37.

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and notably, Luther, show. In this regard, the final word goes to Brian Cummings, the British historian of literature and religion, who summarized quite provocatively the way in which Luther must have himself experienced his position, viz. as standing for “a new radical literate culture striking back against the feudal tyranny of the oral”75. KU Leuven Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies St.-Michielsstraat 4/3101 BE-3000 Leuven Belgium [email protected]

Wim FRANÇOIS

75. B. CUMMINGS, The Literary Culture of the Reformation: Grammar and Grace, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 44. In his article ‘The Oral versus the Written’ (n. 19), Cummings, in the tradition of the Geistesgeschichte, pointed to the deeper layers and arguments that were present in Western culture, and that can be traced back to the heritage of the Semitic religions, on the one hand, and Greek, in casu neo-Platonist, philosophy on the other. The former gave Western people a fascination with the scroll and codex and for the Sacred Word they contain. Neo-Platonist philosophy, however, made people seek the living spirit and the way it conveys knowledge and truth to the community, while at the same time calling into question the incompleteness and ambiguities of written reflections (pp. 34-40). It is even possible that, on this level, the interaction between Jerusalem and Athens, which Nietzsche saw at the foundation of Western culture, is responsible for the two traditions of the Church.

TOWARDS A MORE SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY CASPAR SCHWENCKFELD’S MAIN THEOLOGICAL THEMES FROM HIS EXPOSITION OF PSALM CII IN RELATION TO HIS DEUTSCHE THEOLOGIA WITH A COMPARISON TO OTHER MAJOR REFORMERS

Caspar Schwenckfeld von Ossig (1490-1561) is a lesser known Reformer and is frequently categorized to be a spiritualist or part of the Radical Reformation1. Rather than being a clergy man or a theologian as other Reformers, Schwenckfeld was a nobleman who lived in Silesia during the time of the Reformation. He was born into a noble family, was raised a Roman Catholic, and was educated to be a diplomat. When the Reformation began in 1517, he was a court advisor in Silesia. Schwenckfeld immediately took interest in the Reformation and as a result, abandoned his work with the state so that he could devote himself to Christian affairs. Schwenckfeld corresponded with Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon and agreed with much of what they believed. Most aspects of Schwenckfeld’s faith were in agreement with these Reformers as well as with the historic doctrine of the Christian church. In the broader spectrum of the Reformation, he is associated with Luther but then also with the Radical Reformation. While a preacher, he was primarily a writer. Many of his writings have been preserved in the Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum2. I. CASPAR SCHWENCKFELD AND THEOLOGICAL STATEMENTS A major issue in research on Schwenckfeld is the identification of his systematic theological thought. Several scholars have attempted to define his theology, emphasizing different aspects: the new man3, his Christol1. M. PEARSE, The Great Restoration: The Religious Radicals of the 16th and 17th Centuries, Carlisle, Paternoster, 1998, p. 151. 2. The Corpus consists of 19 volumes of over 18,000 pages that contain 1,252 surviving documents from Caspar Schwenckfeld. The Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center continues to serve researchers of Caspar Schwenckfeld, the Schwenkfelders, and Pennsylvania German culture. 3. E. FURCHA, Caspar Schwenckfeld’s Concept of the New Man: A Study in the Anthropology of Caspar Schwenckfeld von Ossig as Set Forth in His Major Writings, Pennsburg, PA, Schwenkfelder Library, 1970. R. PIETZ, Der Mensch ohne Christus (Eine Untersuchung zur Anthropologie Schwenckfelds), Diss. Tübingen, 1956.

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ogy4, his Christology in conjunction with soteriology5, Scripture and the Apostles’ Creed6, and the church7. Running throughout his theological writings is an emphasis on spiritual freedom8, dualism9, practicality, inner and outer thought, individualism, and love10. Scholars have expressed frustration in systematizing his thought. Ruth Gouldbourne states, “The attempt to find a way of understanding Schwenckfeld’s theology has never been straightforward, in part at least because of the way in which it was written”11. Paul Maier notes that Schwenckfeld’s writings show “a lack of system” before going on to “systematize the unsystematic”12. For Peter Erb his concern was “not primarily to establish a system which was necessarily more correct on dogmatic detail than others, but rather to sketch the outlines of a theological structure which would give proper glory to the person of Christ”13. Paul Eberlein has also commented on several areas that are more systematic but stops short of discovering an overall theological thought14. There are several documents in the Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum, however, that are more systematic in nature. He wrote his Deutsche Theologia für die Gottsfürchtigen Laien vom Herren Christo und von der Christlichen Lehre der Gottseligkeit (“A German Theology for God

4. A. SEGUENNY, The Christology of Caspar Schwenckfeld: Spirit and Flesh in the Process of Life Transformation, trans. P.C. ERB – S. NIEUWOLT (Texts and Studies in Religion, 35), Lewiston, NY, Mellen, 1987, pp. 1-24. H.W. KRIEBEL, The Schwenkfelders in America: A Historical Sketch, Lancaster, PA, New Era, 1904, p. 7. P.C. ERB, Schwenckfeld in His Reformation Setting, Pennsburg, PA, Schwenkfelder Library, 1978, pp. 75-76. 5. P. MAIER, Caspar Schwenckfeld on the Person and Work of Christ: A Study of Schwenckfeldian Theology at Its Core, Assen, Royal Van Gorcum, 1959, pp. 2-5. 6. C. SCHULZ, A Vindication of Caspar Schwenckfeld von Ossig: An Elucidation of His Doctrine and the Vicissitudes of His Followers, trans. E.S. GERHARD, Allentown, PA, Board of Publication of the Schwenkfelder Church, 1942, p. 127. 7. P.G. EBERLEIN, Ketzer oder Heiliger: Caspar von Schwenckfeld. Der schlesische Reformator und seine Botschaft (Studien zur Schlesischen und Oberlausitzer Kirchengeschichte, 6), Württemberg, Ernst Franz, 1998, pp. 179-186. 8. R.E. MCLAUGHLIN, The Freedom of the Spirit, Social Privilege, and Religious Dissent: Caspar Schwenckfeld and the Schwenkfelders (Bibliotheca Dissidentium. Scripta et studia, 6), Baden-Baden, v. Koerner, 1996. 9. R. GOULDBOURNE, The Flesh and the Feminine: Gender and Theology in the Writings of Caspar Schwenckfeld (Studies in Christian History and Thought), Carlisle, Paternoster, 2006, pp. 42-43. 10. S.G. SCHULTZ, Caspar Schwenckfeld von Ossig: A Course of Study, Pennsburg, PA, Schwenkfelder Board of Publication, 1964, p. 44. 11. GOULDBOURNE, The Flesh and the Feminine (n. 9), p. 39. 12. MAIER, Caspar Schwenckfeld on the Person and Work of Christ (n. 5), p. 5. 13. ERB, Schwenckfeld in His Reformation Setting (n. 4), pp. 75-76. 14. EBERLEIN, Ketzer oder Heiliger (n. 7), p. 165.

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Fearing Laity from Christ and the Christian Teaching of Godliness”)15 at the request of Philip Melanchthon, who had objected that Schwenckfeld not produced a systematic theology. It indicates that Schwenckfeld based his Christian faith upon his understanding of the Bible, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer. Major sections in this writing include answers to questions such as: “Who is Christ”?, “What is sin”?, “How can I be saved from sin”?, “What is the new man, and the old man, and how are they to be distinguished”? The catechism ends with his comments on the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer16. It was written a year before Schwenckfeld’s death and likely represents the final compilation of his thought about faith17. These viewpoints are further supported in other documents that record his Christian beliefs, such as his own statement of faith. Several other writings by Schwenckfeld also reveal aspects of his systematic thought. One of these is a commentary on Psalm 102 he wrote in 154018. This paper will examine the main themes that emerge from Schwenckfeld’s Exposition of Psalm CII. It will compare these comments with his Deutsche Theologia. On the basis of this comparison, some conclusions will be drawn with regard to Schwenckfeld’s theological thinking. At the end a brief comparison with Luther and Calvin’s theology is added. II. THE NATURE

OF

PSALM 102

Psalm 102 contains 28 verses and is recognized by modern biblical scholars to be a psalm of individual lament19. In verses 2-12, the psalmist describes his illness. In verses 13-23, he focuses on Zion, which has been 15. C. SCHWENCKFELD, Deutsche Theologia für die Gottsfürchtigen Laien vom Herren Christo und von der Christlichen Lehre der Gottseligkeit, in C.D. HARTRANFT – E.E.S. JOHNSON – S.G. SCHULTZ (eds.), Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum, Norristown, PA – Leipzig, 1926 (henceforth Deutsche Theologia). 16. Ibid., vol. 17, 57-147. 17. McLaughlin notes that documents from the last two decades of Schwenckfeld’s life are “still relatively unexploited”. R.E. MCLAUGHLIN, Spiritualism: Schwenckfeld and Franck and Their Early Modern Resonances, in J. ROTH – J. STAYER (eds.), A Companion to Anabaptism and Spiritualism, 1521-1700 (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 6), Leiden, Brill, 2007, 119-162, p. 155. 18. C. SCHWENCKFELD, Exposition of Psalm CII, in HARTRANFT – JOHNSON – SCHULTZ (eds.), Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum (n. 15), vol. 7, 264-280. 19. H. GUNKEL, An Introduction to the Psalms, Macon, GA, Mercer, 1998, p. 121; M. DAHOOD, Psalms III: 101–150, New York, Doubleday, 1970, pp. 9-10. B. ANDERSON, Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak to Us Today, Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox, 2000, p. 222.

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destroyed, and on her children. Verses 24-29 contrast the brevity of life with the eternal nature of Yahweh. Schwenckfeld published his commentary under Adam Reisner’s pseudonym, Ruffus Sarmentarius. This is the second treatise in which he used this name. He wrote it shortly after Philip Melanchthon, Martin Bucer, Martin Frecht, and others at Smalcald (1537) had condemned spiritualists like Schwenckfeld20. This declaration was leveled at separatists from the church and those who sought perfection in the church. For his part, Schwenckfeld considered the Smalcald declaration as “the new bully of excommunication”21. In his Exposition of Psalm CII, Schwenckfeld comments on the translation of Adam Reisner. Several differences exist between the translation that Schwenckfeld employs and the Luther Bible. Beside different wording at points, the translation that Schwenckfeld uses ascribes the authorship of the Psalm to David. His comments reveal several themes that are central to his overall theology. III. THEMES FROM SCHWENCKFELD’S EXPOSITION OF PSALM CII According to Williams, Schwenckfeld, in agreement with other Radical Reformers, tried to accommodate the Jewish Scripture for the reborn Christian22. This can be found throughout his Exposition of Psalm CII which reveals his ideas about Christ, salvation, and the church. 1. Christology Schwenckfeld interprets large sections of Psalm 102 christologically. This emphasis can already be found in his introductory comments: This is a lamentation and prayer of David concerning the example of Christ and all of his members, namely of the poor in spirit, frightened, miserable, and destroyed believers in Christ who after acknowledged sin turn to Christ the physician, the restorer and forgiver, to ask and cry out that he build and gather his church and convert the people to his spiritual knowledge and his true worship23. 20. Sebastian Franck was also condemned at the same time. G.H. WILLIAMS, The Radical Reformation (Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, 15), Kirksville, MO, NMSU, 3 1992, p. 701. 21. Ibid., p.702. 22. Ibid., pp. 255-256. 23. Slag unnd Gebet Dauids des Vorbilds Christi und aller seiner Glider/ Naemlich der

Gay#tarmen geaeng#tigten ellenden und zer#toerten Chri#tgleübigen/ die #ich nach erkandter #ünd zu Chri#to

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Rather than to worship, Schwenckfeld applies the psalm to matters of Christian salvation, using christological vocabulary: He employs the words Christi, Chri#tgleübigen, and Chri#to. Absent are thoughts about Moses, Israel, and the Hebrew people. Furthermore, he employs the vocabulary of conversion (bekeren). Also noteworthy is the corporate rather than individual understanding. The Psalm applies to the person of Christ and to the church (Kirch). Schwenckfeld then comments on the Psalm verse by verse. In his comment on Ps 102,2, he refers to personal salvation in the person of Christ. The text reads, “Do not hide your face from me in the day that I have tribulation. Incline your ears to me on the day that I call to you for mercy. Rush to me and give me an answer”24. Instead of interpreting the text in terms of personal devotion, Schwenckfeld comments upon it in the following way: The face of God is nothing but the spiritual knowledge of God’s mercy, light, joy, comfort, and eternal truth. It is, in fact, the Lord Christ. Ps 79; [80,3]. Lord, restore us again and let your face shine on us so we become blessed. That means give us your spiritual knowledge in Christ. For the spiritual knowledge of Christ is eternal life25.

Rather than considering the face of God in relation to Yahweh and giving an explanation that may refer to theophanic representation in Scripture (cf. Ex 33,18–34,9; Isa 6,1-13), Schwenckfeld once again brings christological ideas to the text. The spiritual knowledge of Christ (erkandtnuß), an acknowledgment deep in the soul, is where comfort is to be found in time of tribulation. This erkandtnuß is not merely an intellectual knowledge as Maier has pointed out: It involves “die Verheissung Christi”, which is the deep understanding of the promise of Christ as the preexistent word, “die Leistung Christi”, which signifies the accomplishment of Christ in the state of humiliation, “die Glorificierung Christi”,

dem Ar¬t/ widerbringer und vergeber wenden/ bitten und #chreyen/ Das er #eyn Kirch erbawen/ ver#amlen/ und die Men#chen zu #einem erkandtnuß unnd waren Gotsdien#t bekeren woell. The translation of the German from the Exposition of Psalm CII was by H.H.D. WILLIAMS, III and H.D. WILLIAMS, IV with help from L.A. VIEHMEYER, Associate Director of Research, Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center, Pennsburg, PA. 24. Verbürg dein ange#icht nit vor mir/ im tag #o ich trueb#al hab/ naig deine oren zu mir/ am tag

#o ich dich anrueffe Eyle/ und gib mir antwurt. 25. Gottes ange#icht i#t nichts anders/ dann Gottes erkanntnuß/ Gottes barmher¬igkait/ liecht/ freüd/ tro#t und die ewige warhait/ Es i#t naemlich der Herr Chri#tus P#a. 79 [80³]. Herr widerbring uns/ und laß uns erleüchten dein ange#icht/ #o werden wir #elig/ Das i#t/ gib uns dein erkanntnuß in Christo. Dann das erkandtnuß Christi i#t das ewig leben.

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which is Christ in the state of exaltation, and “die Teilhaftigkeit Christi”, namely the participation in Christ in salvation26. Schwenckfeld’s comments on Ps 102,6 also focus on the believer’s experience in Christ. He translates the verse as, “I am like an owl in the wilderness and have become as a raven of the desolate places”27. Instead of developing the metaphor of the owl in a wilderness and the state of the aggrieved person’s body, Schwenckfeld interprets this entirely in relation to Christian truth, following Augustine’s interpretation of the passage (Enarrat. Ps. 102,6). In writing concerning the owl, Augustine also intended the out-of-the-way places where no-one else lives. That only Christ was born of a virgin and no other person was thus born. After the new birth he comes upon suffering, as represented by the raven, who lives in broken walls and abandoned (or, as the little Hebrew word conveys, in arid) places, denies himself all sexual relations and is therefore hated and persecuted. Thus all believers in Christ and steadfast confessors of Christ and of his glory have no place with the children of this world, turn from all that to which the natural man turns, sit with Helia28 in the cave. No-one agrees with them, no-one wants to put up with them, they are hated by all men. And, all in all, the Christian church is the woman who has fled into the desert (Rev 12,1-6)29.

Also the following verse is interpreted christologically. Rather than commenting on the bird of Ps 102,7 as referring solely to the image of a distressed person, Schwenckfeld connects that person closely with Christ, again following the interpretive pattern of Augustine (Enarrat. Ps. 102,7): Here (claims Augustine), the solitary person in God is compared to three birds in three places. To an owl in the wilderness, to a nightingale in destroyed walls, and to a solitary bird on the roof. Because he, after birth and suffering was born again, resurrected and has ascended to heaven, above all creatures and made [himself] solitary on the roof that is in heaven. According to this [interpretation of Augustine], Christ is in birth an owl, in suffering a raven, and after the resurrection a bird soaring in the wilderness, 26. 27. 28. 29.

MAIER, Caspar Schwenckfeld on the Person and Work of Christ (n. 5), pp. 47-105.

Ich bin vergleicht aim Pellican in der wueste/ und worden wie ain Kau¬ an verlaßnen orten.

Helia likely refers to a Hellenistic goddess.

Es maint auch Augu#tinus durch den Pellican an den ungewonlichen orten/ da #on#t niemandts wonet/ #ey bedeüt/ Das allain Chri#tus von ainer Junckfrawen/ und #on#t kain men#ch al#o geboren #ey/ Nach der newen geburt kompt er auf das leiden durch den Kau¬en fürgebildet/ der in zerbrochnen mauren unnd verlaßnen (oder wie das Hebrai#ch woertlin mitbringt/ an dürren) orten wonet/ #ich aller beywonung ent#chlecht/ deßhalben verhaßt und verfolgt wirt/ Al#o #eind alle Chri#t gleübige und be#tendige bekenner Chri#ti unnd #einer herrlichait/ haben kainen pla¬ bey den kindern di#er welt/ keren #ich von allem darzu #ich der natürlich men#ch keret/ #i¬en mit Helia inn der hülin/ Niemandt hellts mit inen/ niemandt mag #y dulden/ #y #eind verha##et allen men#chen/ Und in #umma die Chri#tlich Kirch i#t das weib in die wue#tin geflogen/ Apoca. 12 [1-6].

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as uniquely and uncommonly born, killed in destroyed walls by those who did not want to remain in prayer and are abandoned by God. But as he awakes and flies up, he is now solitary on the roof30.

His observations then turn to the body of Christ: Then he prays for the believers, whom he quickens through his Holy Spirit, gives birth to again, makes holy and children of God, brings out through suffering and thus gathers in his house under his wings, and as head [he] rules his members; with this Ps 83,3-4 agrees. The bird has found a house and the swallow a nest where it cares for his young ones, namely your altar, Lord of Hosts, my King and my God31.

What may have been more readily interpreted individualistically is now interpreted in reference to Christ and to his body, the church. This continues in verse 8 which is also primarily interpreted in relation to the church. Throughout his comments on Psalm 102 Christ’s name appears eighty-six times. This reveals the role Christology plays in Schwenckfeld’s exposition. 2. Soteriology As Schwenckfeld comments further on the Psalm, his exposition moves to soteriological ideas. Ps 102,9 reads: “Then I have eaten ashes as bread, and mixed my drink with tears”32. Whereas contemporary biblical scholars would refer to the sadness and lament of this pious person of God, perhaps David, read from Schwenckfeld’s perspective, the verse speaks of the attitude a Christian should possess. “A believer in Christ must indeed first become an ash-dweller, should he come to the table of God. Then blessed are they who shed tears (Matt. 5,4). Woe to them

30. Hie (#pricht Augu#tinus) wirt der ainig men#ch in Gott dreyerlay voeglen an dreyerlay orten vergleicht. Ainem Pellican in der ainoedin/ ainer Nachteylen in zer#toereten wenden/ und aim ain¬igen vogel auff dem tach/ darumb das er nach der geburt und leiden widergeboren/ auffer#tanden/ gen himel gefaren/ #ich über alle Creaturen ge#chwungen/ und ainig gemacht hab/ auf dem tach/ das i#t im himel/ Demnach #ey Christus inn der geburt ain Pellican/ inn leiden ain Kau¬/ und ain aufgeflogner vogel nach der Auffer#tehung/ inn der Wildtnuß/ als ainig und ungewonlicherweis geboren/ in zer#toereten wenden/ ertoedtet von denen die am gebew nit bleiben moechten/ und von Gott verla##en #eind/ Als er aber erwacht und #ich aufge#chwungen/ #ey Er ye¬ ainig auf dem tach/. 31. Da bitt er für die gleübigen/ die Er durch #einen hailigen gai#t erquickt/ widergebüret/ hailig und kinder Gottes macht/ durchs leiden außfuert/ und al#o in #ein hauß under #eine flügel ver#ammlet/ unnd als das haupt #eine glider regiert/ darzu dann #timpt der 83 [3-4] P#alm/ Der vogel hat ain hauß funden/ und der Schwalb ain ne#t da er #eine jungen außzeücht/ Naemlich deine altar Herr Zebaoth/ Mein Künig unnd mein Gott. 32. Dann ich hab ae#chen als brot gee##en/ unnd meinen tranck mitt wainen gemi#chet.

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who laugh (Luke 6,25). Physical bread no longer appeals to such a frightened conscience”33. The status before rebirth is found in Schwenckfeld’s comments on v. 10: “Because of your disfavor and of your wrath you have lifted me up and cast me down”34. Schwenckfeld proceeds to speak about the experience of the Christian in the old man, which is just prior to rebirth: When sin and the judgment of God are felt, so one finds oneself in the depths and hangs in the balance, thinks that he has not been thrown down only by the world but also by God and outcast, as [if he were] by nature a child of wrath (Eph 2,3). [He] perceives that God lifts him as an earthen bowl and dashes him against the floor. It hurts worse, for his enemies persecute him openly and it appears to him as if God were assisting his enemies, had completely abandoned his confessor, and did not delight in his spirit. Thus God humbles before he exalts, beats down before he lifts up. He is wrathful to the old Adam, punishes him with tribulation, throws him against the ground, [so] that he indeed might speak35.

Soteriological ideas extend into the latter part of the Psalm. He translates v. 20 as, “That he heard the sighing of the prisoners, that he liberated the children of death”36 and explains it as, Those who do not recognize their imprisonment and do not cry out to him from their bonds he does not hear, they remain children of death, wrath and damnation. For this liberation from the prison of Satan, sin, hell and eternal death, see Psalm 126 and likewise Luke 1,74-75. So that we, liberated from the hand of our enemy, may serve him without fear, with holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life37.

33. Ain Chri#tgleübiger muß doch zuuor ain ae#chengrundel werden/ #oll er zum Ti#ch Gottes kommen/ Dann #aelig #eind die da wainen [Matt. 54]/ Wehe denen die hie lachen [Luke 625]/ Es #chmeckt auch ainem #olchen geeng#tigten gewi##en/ das leiplich brot nit. 34. Von wegen deiner ungnad und deins zorns / Dann du ha#t mich erhebt und hingeworffen. 35. Wann die #ünd und das gericht Gottes wirt gefuehlet/ #o #teckt der men#ch inn der tieffe/ und hangt imm #chwung/ denckt das er nit allain von der welt/ #onder auch von Got hingeworffen und ver#to##en/ als von natur ain kind des zorens/ Ephe#. 2[3]. Empfindet das in Gott als ain irrdin ge#chirr auffhebt/ und in wider den boden zur#chmaettert/ Das thut wyr#er/ dann das die feind eü##erlich verfolgen/ und #icht im gleich/ als ob Gott den feinden bey ge#tand/ #einen bekenner gar verla##en/ unnd im #einen gai#t gar en¬uckt habe/ Also ernidert Got zuuor ehe dann Er erhoehet/ Schlecht nider ehe dann er auffhilfft/ Er i#t dem alten Adam gram/ #trafft in durch trueb#al/ würfft in wider den boden/ das er wol mag #prechen. 36. Das er hoerete das #eüff¬en des Gefangenen/ das er ledig machte die kinder des todes. 37. Die ir gefencknuß nit erkennen/ und inn banden nit zu im #chreyen/ erhoert er nit/ die bleiben kinder des tods/ zorns unnd verdammnuß/ Von di#er entledigung auß der gefencknuß des Sathans/ #ünd/ hell und ewigen tods/ Be#ihe den 126. P#alm. Item Luc. 1 [74, 75]. Auff das wir erledigt auß der hand un#erer feind/ im dienen on forcht/ mit hailigkait und gerechtigkait/ vor im/ alle die tag un#ers lebens.

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Ps 102,23, “He humbles on the way my power and has shortened my days”38, is commented upon as follows: So that man becomes converted from sins, submits and sacrifices himself to Christ, so on the road, before he comes home, he becomes humbled in the word of the Cross, in the way of the Cross, which leads through much tribulation into the kingdom of God (Acts 14,22). Practice and Cross bring spiritual knowledge, God’s chastisement makes more pious39. The spirit must drive our supposed power to good and strongly strike [it] down Ps 21, [22,15]. My power is withered like a shard, and you have led me into the dust of death Ps 118, [119,67]. Before I was humbled I sinned, but now I keep your words. It is good for me that you have humbled me, so that I learn your law40.

3. Ecclesiology A third emphasis is on ecclesiology. Schwenckfeld’s comments about this topic appear throughout the Psalm. They are founded upon his Christology but are then interwoven particularly amidst his views of soteriology. His first ecclesiological remarks occur in his explanation of v. 5. He has referred to the old and new man in v. 3 and human sinfulness in v. 4. Schwenckfeld interprets v. 5 as referring to the church, although in the translation Christ or his body are not mentioned: “Because of the voice of my sighing, my bone clings to my flesh”41. He draws the conclusion, Those who cling to the body of Christ who sigh without ceasing, the zeal for the house of God eats them up (Ps 69,9). The fleshly ones and those not driven by the Spirit of God do not thus sigh. Their bone does not cling to their flesh, they walk with a springy step, remain in the supposed juice of nature, reason – and in darkness42.

38. Er demuetigt auf dem weg mein kraft/ und hat verkürzt meine taeg. 39. Schwenckfeld provides a notation in the margin of his writing: “The cross of the blessed of God”. “Dz Creü¬e der gott #aeligen”. 40. Damit der men#ch von #ünden bekert werd/ #ich Chri#to undergebe und auffopffere/ #o wirdt er

auff dem weg/ ehe dann er haim kompt/ gedemuetigt imm wort des Creü¬s/ imm Creü¬gang/ der durch vil trueb#al inn das reich Gottes fuert/ Acto. 14 [22]. Yebung und Creü¬ bringt erkanntnuß/ Gottes züchtigung macht frümmer/ Der gai#t muß zum guten treiben/ un#er vermainte krafft und #terck nider#chlagen/ Psalm. 21 [2215]. Mein kraft i#t verdorret wie ain #cherb/ und du ha#t mich inn den #taub des tods gefuert/ P#al. 118 [11967]. Ehe ich gedemuetigt war/ #ündigt ich/ Nun aber hallt ich deine wort/ Es i#t mir gut das du mich gedemuetigt ha#t/ damit ich deine recht lerne. 41. Von wegen der #timm meines #eüf¬ens hangt mein gebain an meinem flai#ch. 42. Die dem leib Chri#ti anhangen/ die #eüff¬en on unterlaß/ der eyfer des hauß Gottes verzeret #y [Ps. 699]/ Die flai#chlichen aber/ und die der gai#t Gottes nit treibt/ #eüff¬en nit al#o/ Ir gebain klebt nit am flai#ch/ #y gehn in vollen #pringen/ bleyben in vermaintem #afft der natur/ vernunfft und in der fin#ternuß.

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Rather than on an individual person among God’s people, Schwenckfeld’s comments relate to the body of Christ and a deep spiritual knowledge of all that he is. Schwenckfeld interprets the reference to Zion ecclesiologically. Ps 102,13 reads, “You would rise up and have mercy on Zion, for it is time to have mercy on her, the promised witness is at hand”43. Schwenckfeld comments: Zion is the mountain and the fortress at Jerusalem, that David won after he was anointed King and drove the Jebusites out of it; subsequently called the city of David, the mountain of the Lord and the mountain of holiness44. It means the house of God and Christian assembly, in it Christ, God and man was appointed King (Ps 2,6). How he then there wants to reign and rule Psalm 131 (Ps 132,13-14). The believers must come onto this mountain Hebrews 12,22. While now the destruction and the godless living is in plain view, however, God had resolved, deliberated and promised redemption through Christ from the beginning. He wants also to keep faith and deliver on his promises. As well, we should ask him without ceasing for the building of the churches, that he would indeed have mercy and deliver on his promises, pact and covenant with us45.

While the text from the Psalmist would lead one to expect comments on the nature of Israel, Schwenckfeld interprets Zion in terms of the church. He applies praying for the building again to the church of his time. The reference to Zion in v. 16 is interpreted in the same perspective. The translation reads, “The Lord has built up Zion and has been seen in his glory”46. In his comment on the verse, Schwenckfeld refers to Zion as the people of God from the Old Testament, but then he also incorporates Christ and the church into it. He finishes his exposition of this verse by quoting Matt 16,18, “On this Rock (namely the one which you, Peter, recognized and confessed, that is on myself) will I build my church”47. Throughout his Exposition of Psalm CII, Schwenckfeld will refer to other 43. Du woelle#t auff#tan/ unnd dich über Zion erbarmen/ Dann es i#t zeyt #ich #ein zuerbarmen/ die verhaißne zeügknuß i#t verhanden. 44. In a note next to his commentary, Schwenckfeld references 2 Kgs 5 [2 Sam 5,6-8]. 45. Zion i#t der berg und die burg zu Hieru#alem/ die Dauid/ nach dem Er zum Künig ge#albet/

gewunnen/ und die Jebu#iter darauß vertriben/ Nachmals die #tatt Dauids/ der berg des Herren und der berg der Hailigkait genannt/ Bedeüt das hauß Gottes und Chri#tliche ver#amlung/ darein Chri#tus Gott und Men#ch zum Künig ge#e¬t worden/ P#al. 2[6]. Wie Er dann da herr#chen und ruwen will/ P#al. 131 [13213, 14]. Auff di#en berg mue##en die gleübigen kommen/ Hebr. 12[22]. Dieweil nu die zer#toerung und das gottloß leben vor augen/ und aber Gott von anfang die Erloe#ung durch Chri#tum be#chlo##en/ berat#chlagt und verhai##en/ Er auch glauben hallten unnd #ein zu#agen lai#ten will/ So #ollen wir ine on unterlaß umb erbawung der Kirchen bitten/ das er #ich woell erbarmen/ #ein zu#agen/ pact und bündtnuß an uns lai#ten. 46. Der Herr hat zion erbawen/ und i#t ge#ehen worden in #einer herrlichait. 47. Auff di#en Fel#en (naemlich den du Petre erkannt unnd bekannt ha#t/ das i#t/ auff mich #elb#t) will ICH bauwen mein Kirch/ Matth. 16[18].

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biblical passages, but he rarely writes out the quotation from a New Testament text. Also noteworthy, is his capitalization of the word for I (ICH), when used for Jesus. It is the only word that is fully capitalized. As the Psalm continues to speak about Israel, Schwenckfeld will interpret this in relation to the people of God in Christ. In v. 18, the psalmist writes about “the future generation”. Schwenckfeld translates, “This will be written to a future generation and the newly created people will praise the Lord”48. The Hebrew reads the word “‫ ”רוֹד‬which is rendered as “Geburt”49. Schwenckfeld takes it to be “the future generation who are believers, who through Christ are born again, a new Israel, not from flesh and blood, but born from God, of stones, that is, newly created out of sinners”50. He explains further that these believers are “a new creature in Christ. The old is vanished and all has become new”. Schwenckfeld also interprets Zion in v. 21 (“To make known in Zion the Name of the Lord and his praise in Jerusalem”51), in relation to Christ and the church: The natural man is the first generation, partially in the death of sin Eph. 2,5. When Christ wakes us and makes us alive from such a death, then and not before we might pull ourselves up and praise God. Who thus from a child of death becomes a child of life, he owes the name of the Lord Christ to praise his grace, honor and glory 1 Pet. 2,9. You are the holy people, that you may declare the power of him who called you from darkness to his wonderful light52. This occurs then in Zion and at Jerusalem in the holy temple of God, where alone true religion may be accomplished, God’s praise declared and the name of the Lord may be preached53.

Schwenckfeld has used motifs from Ephesians 2 and 1 Peter 2 to explain Jewish ideas regarding Zion and Jerusalem found in Psalm 102. He also considers the church to be an invisible body based upon conversion rather than a visible one. In his comments on v. 22, the church will be gathered by Christ through the cross and suffering. 48. Das wirt ge#chriben/ der andern Geburt/ und das new er#chaffen volck wirt den Herren loben. 49. The Luther Bible uses “das Volk”. 50. Das hie die ander geburt/ die gleübigen #eind/ die durch Chri#tum newgeboren/ ain new I#rahel/

nit auß flai#ch und blut/ #onder auß Gott geboren/ auß #tainen/ das i#t/ auß #ündern newge#chaffen. 51. Zuuerkünden in Zion den Namen des Herren/ und #ein lob in Hieru#alem. 52. Schwenckfeld provides a notation in the margin of his writing: That all Christians are responsible to praise Christ. Das alle Chri#ten #chuldig #ein/ Chri#tum zu prei#en.. 53. Der natürlich men#che i#t der er#ten geburt halb inn der #ünd tod/ Ephe. am 2[5]. Wann Chri#tus

uns von #olchem tod erweckt und lebendig macht/ Als dann/ und zuuor nit/ mügen wir uns auffrichten unnd Gott loben/ wellicher al#o auß aim kind des tods ain kind des lebens wirt/ der i#t #chuldig den Namen des Herren/ Chri#tum #ein gnad/ eer und herrligkait zu prey#en/ 1. Pet. 2[9]. Ir #eyt das Hailig volcke/ das ir verkündet die krafft de##en der euch beruefft hat/ von der Fin#ternuß zu #einem wunderbaren liecht/ das g#chicht dann inn Sion und zu Jeru#alem imm hailigthumb Gottes/ da allain der ware Gottesdien#t verbracht/ Gottes lob verkündigt/ der nam des Herren gepredigt mag werden.

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Soteriology and ecclesiology intertwine in Schwenckfeld’s comments on v. 26. The translation reads, “The same will perish, you however will endure, And everything will decay like a garment, you let them perish like a vestment, so they vanish”54. Thus it is not possible that the reigning Christ would want to abandon his glorious divine being and transform himself today into a creaturely, subservient being. This is different than his wanting to transform and renew the believing flesh through his spirit, just as his humanity becomes completely renewed in the resurrection. The old external man, the body, the old garment must be destroyed [Isa 50,9]. They will decay all at once like a garment, and the moths will eat them. The Christians must be transformed into something better. Another being in flesh and blood must come and, as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive [1 Cor 15,22]. The old man, who does not adhere to God, is a decayed garment spoiled by moths. Who confesses Christ in faith, he has a new wedding garment, he alone will exist in God, as the church says Isa 61,10. I will rejoice in [my] heart, and my soul is joyful in my God, for he has clothed me [with the] garment of salvation, a coat of righteousness and wrapped a coat of righteousness around me, like a bridegroom and a bride are resplendent in their adornment. Who[ever] conquers, he will be dressed with white clothes and I will never cross out his name from the Book of Life and I will confess his name before my Father, Rev 1 [Rev 3,5]55.

Once again, Schwenckfeld detects a reference to the church in Psalm 102: The confession of Christ in faith leads to the new man and ultimately to the church.

54. Die#elben werden undergehn/ du aber wirt be#tan, Und das alles wirt wie ain klaid verwe#en/ wie ain gewand la#tu #y vergehn/ #o zergeen #y. 55. Al#o daß nit müglich/ das der regierend Chri#tus #ein herrlichs goettliches we#en verla##en/ und #ich heüt inn creaturliche dien#tbar we#en verwandlen woell/ Ander#t dann das er das gleübige flai#ch durch #einen gai#t verwandlen und ernewern will/ wie #ein men#chait inn der Auffer#tehung gan¬ vernewet i#t worden/ Der alt eü##erlich men#ch/ der leib/ das alt klaid muß zer#toert werden/ E#aie. 50[9]. Sy werden alle zumal wie ain klaid verwe#en/ und die #chaben werden #y fre##en/ Die Chri#ten mue##en inn be##ers verwandelt werden/ Es muß ain anders we#en inn flai#ch und blut kommen/ und gleich wie inn Adam alle #terben/ Al#o inn Chri#to alle lebendig gemacht werden/ 1. Corinth. 15[22]. Der alt men#ch der Gott nit anhangt/ i#t ain verwe#en klaid von #chaben verdorben/ Wer Chri#tum imm glauben anzeücht/ der hat ain new hochzeitlich klaid/ der allain wirdt inn Gott be#tehn/ wie die Kirch #agt/ E#aie. 61 [10]. Ich will mich erfrewen imm Herren/ unnd mein #eel i#t froelich inn meinem Got/ dann er hat mir das klaid des hails anzogen/ ain mantel der gerechtigkait umb mich ge#chlagen/ wie ain Breüttigam und ain Braut inn irem #chmuck brangen/ Wer überwindt der #oll mit wei##en klaidern angelegt werden/ und ich wird #einen namen nit außtilcken/ auß dem buch des Lebens/ und ich will #einen namen bekennen vor meinem Vatter/ Apo. 1 [Rev. 35].

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4. Summary Psalm 102 is a psalm of individual lament. Schwenckfeld, however, interprets it in relation to Christology, Christian soteriological concerns, and ecclesiology. His comments are frequently related to New Testament motifs. He emphasizes both Christ’s humanity and divinity. Soteriologically, the concepts of the old and the new man are found in places where it would not be expected from a psalm of individual lament56. His understanding of the church is linked to his christological and soteriological explanation. IV. EXPOSITION OF PSALM CII IN RELATION TO THE DEUTSCHE THEOLOGIA Schwenckfeld’s Exposition of Psalm CII exhibits theological ideas that were also found in another, more systematic writing, his Deutsche Theologia. This document likely represents the final compilation of his thinking about faith. It is composed of a foreword, twenty-six questions with answers, a special section on the new man and rebirth, an exposition of the Twelve Articles, and an explanation of the Lord’s Prayer. It is an extenuation of his catechism of 1531. 1. Christology Much in Deutsche Theologia contains emphases and ideas similar to what is found in Schwenckfeld’s interpretation of Psalm 102. Already in the first question he asks, “In what is the proper foundation of eternal blessedness”57? The answer is found in the person of Christ when he responds as follows: The proper foundation, the beginning and end of eternal blessedness, stands completely and absolutely in our Lord Jesus Christ and in his true knowledge in which also is eternal life. For it is written: Another foundation can no person lay than that which is laid, namely Jesus Christ58; and there is salvation in no other; and, there is no other name given to people by which we can be blessed59. Whoever believes in him will be justified and will not 56. For this emphasis in Schwenckfeld’s theology see EBERLEIN, Ketzer oder Heiliger (n. 7), pp. 165-171. 57. H.H.D. WILLIAMS (ed.), Caspar Schwenckfeld: Eight Writings on Christian Beliefs, Kitchener, Pandora, 2006, p. 34. 58. Schwenckfeld provides a notation in the margin of his writing: 1 Cor 3,11. 59. Marginal note: Acts 4,12.

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be put to shame. All of the prophets witness to this, that through his name all those who believe in him will receive forgiveness of sins60.

The next question Schwenckfeld addresses is also christologically motivated, “What or Who is Jesus Christ”61? His answer indicates the centrality of Christ: Jesus Christ is the single great mystery of all piety (1 Tim 3,16), the one toward whom the whole Holy Scripture points and of whom it testifies. He is the promised Messiah, the eternal, only begotten, natural Son of God, the almighty Father, true God and man, our Savior and Redeemer, the Lord of heaven and earth. He for our sake descended from heaven and became man, one person in two united natures. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, condemned to death for the sake of our sins, and raised again from the dead for the sake of our righteousness62, that is to renew us, make us just, pious, and holy, so that through his grace we were justified and made inheritors of the hope of eternal life63.

Later in Deutsche Theologia Schwenckfeld asks a third question when writing about the true knowledge of Christ. “What is the spiritual knowledge of Christ”64? His answer is connected with the previous explanation of John 3 and with the prior question, “How then might I be freed from such harmful evil, sin, and damnation, and be made blessed”? This question is embedded in his discussion regarding how someone can be freed from sin. 2. Soteriology Deutsche Theologia contains fourteen questions devoted directly to matters pertaining soteriology. These begin immediately after his explanation of “What or who is Jesus Christ?”. Schwenckfeld’s explanation progresses to six other questions: “What is sin, and how is it that we are sinners? How then might I be freed from such harmful evil, sin, and damnation, and be made blessed? How should I understand this, or how shall this take place asks the wise, learned Nicodemus? What is the spiritual knowledge of Christ? What is the gospel through which we are born again, and how is it to be properly received? What, then, is the rebirth, and how should it be known”65? After an intervening question 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

Marginal note: Rom 10,11. WILLIAMS (ed.), Caspar Schwenckfeld (n. 57), pp. 34-35. Marginal note: Rom 4,24-25. Marginal note: Tit 3,5-7. WILLIAMS (ed.), Caspar Schwenckfeld (n. 57), p. 44. Ibid., pp. 36-56.

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concerning the new and old man, Schwenckfeld adds one more question directly related to salvation: “How may I come to the rebirth”66? Other questions about salvation follow later. Like in Exposition of Psalm CII, the new birth or rebirth, as well as the new man, are important. Schwenckfeld even devotes a question within his discussion about salvation to the new and the old man. He describes the old man in a similar way as in the commentary on Psalm 102. The old man is of one kind in body and soul, which the Scripture calls the flesh, depraved to his very depths, without faith, without grace, without divine love, and without the Spirit of God. He is completely earthly, Adamic man, a godless man, turned completely away from God, all turned and bent in upon his own love, who seeks only that which is earthly, transitory, and pleasant to the flesh67.

Later in the answer to the question, he describes the new man as follows: The new man, however, is the man who for the sake of Christ has been blessed, whose heart God has stirred to turn from darkness to light, from the world to heaven, and from sin to God. All this arises from the new birth of God or rebirth. He has all things in the measure of faith, which in contrast the old man lacks. From this, it is easy in the grace of Christ to distinguish these two kinds of manhood and give to each its due. The new man is ashamed of this Paul says (Rom 6,21). Indeed, he shudders before that in which he took pleasure, desired, or enjoyed according to the old man in his old sinful flesh68.

Schwenckfeld includes a special section in Deutsche Theologia entitled “A Symbolic Representation of the New Man and the Rebirth”. This section is set apart in special script. He sees this new man figuratively in the Old Testament. Schwenckfeld finds the new man in the birth of Isaac who was born by the word of promise by faith. “This type of new birth, indeed, is what must take place in all Christians spiritually through Christ, according to the well-known example of the bodily birth of Christ who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary was truly fulfilled as the founder of the new birth”69. 3. Ecclesiology Deutsche Theologia contains a couple of passages reflecting Schwenckfeld’s view of the church. In the foreword he writes, “In the study that follows, Christian reader, you have an unbiased catechism from which 66. 67. 68. 69.

Ibid., pp. 59-61. Ibid., p. 56. Ibid., p. 57. WILLIAMS (ed.), Caspar Schwenckfeld (n. 57), p. 58.

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you can learn how a person is to come to the right path to Christ Jesus and know him despite the present division of the faith”. As part of his comments on the spiritual knowledge of Christ, he also touches upon his understanding of the church. He writes, In short, the knowledge of Christ that is of the Holy Spirit and which makes us righteous and holy does not mean only that we know that the eternal Word of God has united himself personally with flesh, and has become man. It is also not enough to know what the man Jesus of Nazareth, our Lord and God on earth, was and did while he was here in that form. Rather, we must know even more: that he, today, is in heaven, in the glory of God his Father, with his body, soul, flesh and blood. He is, works, lives, and sets up all the things that pertain to this heavenly King’s spiritual kingdom and works among men, among the citizens of the new Jerusalem, the heavenly city of God, that is, in the Christian churches, to which he was given as head and who is with all their members70.

In his explanation of Christian doctrine at the end of Deutsche Theologia, Schwenckfeld comments on the church, discussing article 8, “I believe in the holy catholic church”. Consider what this assembly or church is, where it comes from, how it was born and whence it arises. It is the chosen bride, the body of which Christ is the head, a pure dove without wrinkle or blemish, washed and bathed by Christ (Eph 5,26-30). It is gathered by the Holy Spirit. It is of one mind in the truth, has and lives with Christ in one Spirit, is flesh from his flesh, bone of his bones, etc.71.

Schwenckfeld’s comments concerning article 9, “I believe in the fellowship of the saints” also demonstrate his ecclesiological understanding: Consider who these saints are and how they have been made holy, that is in and through one saint, in Christ Jesus. Consider also what their business or fellowship is, that they believe in one God, have one Lord and Father, Eph 4,4-6. They are companions here in suffering and the cross and there in eternal glory and eternal life. In all grace and gifts, they are members of one body, 1 Cor 12,1272.

As before, Schwenckfeld finds the church to be the mystical body of those who possess true faith in Christ73. There is no mention of the outer body to which they belong. It is an invisible church based on inner faith rather than on ecclesial expression. His Deutsche Theologia contains nothing about separation from Roman Catholicism. 70. Ibid., p. 47. 71. Ibid., pp. 109-110. 72. Ibid., p. 110. 73. This agrees with other studies about ecclesiology from Schwenckfeld. PEARSE, The Great Restoration (n. 1), p. 151.

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V. COMPARISON WITH LUTHER AND CALVIN Schwenckfeld’s theological viewpoints as presented in this paper contain a number of ideas similar to those of other major Reformers, but they also exhibit a few differences. This section will provide a comparison with the major Reformers, Luther and Calvin, and their explanation of Psalm 10274. 1. Christology Schwenckfeld, Luther, and Calvin agree on the primacy of Christ. Christology is the central part of Luther’s theological thinking as evidenced in the preface of his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians where he states, “There reigns in my heart a single fact: faith in Christ. It is from there that all my theological meditation flows” (40.1.33.7-11). His Christology is displayed across a wide range of literary genres75. Luther insisted on the two natures of Christ – the true divinity of Christ and the reality of his humanity (WA 6.511.34-39). He confronted Schwenckfeld in his On the Divinity and Humanity of Christ (WA 39.2.93-96). While it is not obvious in the Exposition of Psalm CII or his Deutsche Theologia, Schwenckfeld will in other writings emphasize the glorified Christ76. In his Exposition of Psalm CII, written between 1513-1515, Luther employs a christological focus77. He envisions the one who is desperate in need to come to the very face of Christ (Ps 102,1), whom he then explains as being the incarnate one and the one who comes to the Christian in his first and second advent (Ps 102,2). He will not, however, speak about the spiritual knowledge of Christ as Schwenckfeld does in his comments. Luther understands the owl that is outcast in the wilderness as referring to the people of Christ who are alone because of resistance in the world but not to the person of Christ as does Schwenckfeld. As he returns to comment on Ps 102,7, Luther will interpret this in relation to the threefold persecution of the church by tyrants, heretics, and false brothers.

74. I am thankful for Prof. Dr. Andreas Beck’s input for this section. 75. M. ARNOLD, Luther on Christ’s Person and Work, in R. KOLB – I. DINGEL – L. BATKA (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther’s Theology, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 276. 76. MCLAUGHLIN, Spiritualism (n. 17), p. 131; EBERLEIN, Ketzer oder Heiliger (n. 7), p. 177. 77. LW 11.295-315.

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Calvin also shows a high reverence for the person of Christ in his theology. The second of the four books of his Institutes of the Christian Religion is entitled “The Knowledge of God the Redeemer in Christ, First Disclosed to the Fathers under the Law and then to us in the Gospel”. His view on Christ is interwoven with his understanding of the doctrine of God (Inst. I.13), justification (Inst. II.14-17), and the sacraments (Inst. IV.17.26-32). Like Luther, Calvin affirms the two natures of the person of Christ (II.12-13) and Chalcedonian orthodoxy. While the two disagree with the way the other expresses unity and duality in Christology, they both affirm a Christology in which Jesus is both fully God and fully man. Calvin will also place particular emphasis on Christ’s human nature for his followers78. In his explanation of Psalm 102, Calvin declares his meditation is for “those who were distressed on account of the desolate condition of the Church”79. He refers to Christ far less frequently than Schwenckfeld. For Calvin, the declaration of the Lord’s name in Ps 102,21, will take place at the coming of Christ. In his comments on Ps 102,23-24, he mentions that the godly in ancient times were pressing on in the race towards Christ as the goal80. 2. Soteriology As for Schwenckfeld, soteriology is a significant concern also for the other Reformers. Christology and soteriology are closely linked together in Luther. In his summary of Luther’s view on soteriology, Lohse writes, “Christology has soteriology as its aim; soteriology is based in Christology”81. The presence of God is only salvific to humanity when it is connected to the humanity of Christ. Luther saw the reconciliation of humanity and God, as well as the liberation of humanity from evil powers, take place in the work of Christ82. Against the old picture of a frightening God who demands good works, the grace of God became all important. This is connected to Luther’s understanding of justification as the central article of his teaching 78. C. PARTEE, The Theology of John Calvin, Louisville, KY – London, Westminster John Knox, 2008, pp. 142-158. Cf. Inst. II.14.1-3. 79. J. CALVIN, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, trans. J. ANDERSON, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Printing, 1847, p. 97. 80. Ibid., pp. 117-120. 81. B. LOHSE, Martin Luther’s Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 1999, p. 223. 82. ARNOLD, Luther (n. 75), pp. 283-284.

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(WA 40.3.335.5-10). For Luther, a person cannot be made righteous through his own works; it is by faith in God who justifies the godless that a person is justified. The one justified by faith in Christ is simultaneously righteous and a sinner (WA 39.1.563.13-564,4)83. Salvation is frequently mentioned in Luther’s explanation of Psalm 102. The lengthiest comments, however, concern the poverty of humankind apart from Christ. This begins in the comments on v. 1 where he states that only the poor of spirit can pray, “O Lord, hear my prayer”. The poverty of the old man is in Luther’s mind all through the comments on vv. 3-11 when he speaks of the old man who is dried up like grass and whose heart withers. His days have declined like a shadow. The one who follows the Law according to the letter and not spiritually will end up in misery (Ps 102,11.23). In the comment on v. 14, however, the grace and mercy of God make weak human beings pleasing to God. He is the one who initiates the salvation of mankind by grace and through the incarnation84. Calvin also viewed soteriology as connected to Christology85. The second book of his Institutes of the Christian Religion develops from the promise of the person of Christ (chapters 6-11) to the person of Christ (chapters 12-14), to the work of Christ as prophet, priest, and king (chapter 15), and finally to the life that Christ applies to his own (chapters 16-17). Like Luther, Calvin believed that justification was central. It was the “main hinge upon which religion turns” (Inst. III.11.1). Relying upon works is unacceptable86. In his commentary on Psalm 102, however, salvation does not seem to be as important for Calvin. He focuses more on the deliverance of God’s people then and now87. His most explicit reference to the salvation of the individual appears in his comments on v. 28, when he speaks about individuals being estranged from God and in need of reconciliation88.

83. LOHSE, Martin Luther’s Theology (n. 81), pp. 262-264. 84. LW 11.295-315. 85. C. VAN DER KOOI, Christology, in H.J. SELDERHUIS (ed.), The Calvin Handbook, trans. H.J. BARON, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 2009, pp. 257-258. 86. PARTEE, Theology of John Calvin (n. 71), pp. 222-225. 87. For example, see his comments on Ps 102,17 and 102,21-22, where the church is in view. CALVIN, Commentary on the Book of Psalms (n. 72), p. 470. 88. Ibid., p. 123.

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3. Ecclesiology Luther and Calvin also largely agree with Schwenckfeld regarding ecclesiology. The church is not primarily an institution but consists of those who have been called by their Savior. Like Schwenckfeld, they believe that the church emerges from salvation in Christ. The church is a communion of saints who are Christians and holy and gather together in a holy assembly. Christ is the head of the church, and outside of the church and apart from Christ, there is no salvation. They also hold that the Holy Spirit creates the church, and that it is to be a unified body. All three reject the priestly sacramentalism of the medieval church as well as the hierarchical system of Rome89. For Luther, the word is the decisive mark of the church90. Preaching the gospel of the forgiveness of sins is the true treasure of the church (WA 1.237.22-23; LW 31.31). God’s word cannot exist without God’s people and the latter cannot exist without God’s word (WA 50.629.34-35; LW 41.150). The word has priority over the papacy, the councils, and the sacraments of the church. Christ alone is its head, a premise that he stressed repeatedly. While sacraments are also important, these are submissive to the word91. In Luther’s comment on Ps 102,6, the owl of the wilderness refers to the church. The birds in vv. 7-8 signify the threefold persecution of the church by tyrants, heretics, and false brothers. In explaining v. 9, he speaks of the church as foolish and reproachable. Luther interprets the people assembling together in v. 22 as referring to the church92. In his treatment about the church (Inst. IV.1.3), Calvin emphasizes the election of God. He emphasizes a visible church that is distinct from the visible church. God alone knows who is part of the invisible church (Inst. IV.1.8). The preaching of Scripture and the administration of the sacraments are the marks of the church (Inst. IV.1.9). Rather than any earthly hierarchy, God alone rules the church93. In comparison to Schwenckfeld, Calvin finds much more that applies to the church in Psalm 102, since he understands the kingdom of David

89. D. DANIEL, Luther on the Church, in KOLB – DINGEL – BATKA (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther’s Theology (n. 75), pp. 337-340; LOHSE, Martin Luther’s Theology (n. 81), p. 278. 90. LOHSE, Martin Luther’s Theology (n. 81), p. 335. 91. Ibid., pp. 278-279. 92. LW 11.295-315. 93. G. PLASGER, Ecclesiology, in SELDERHUIS (ed.), The Calvin Handbook (n. 85), 323-332.

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as foreshadowing the kingdom of Christ94. He points to the church in his introduction when noting that the psalmist “prescribes it to those only who were distressed on account of the desolate condition of the church”95. He interprets vv. 3 and 11 as referring to that condition and Zion in v. 14 as referring to the church. In v. 15, he sees the church in ruins because God’s word is trampled and his ways are defiled. In vv. 17, 18, and 22, he encourages his readers to yearn for the restoration of the church. As he comments on the foundations for the earth, Calvin also mentions the church as founded upon the word (Ps 102,25)96. VI. CONCLUSION Caspar Schwenckfeld’s theology is less systematic than that of most other Reformers. Although his ideas are scattered over 1250 documents, most of which are directed to other Christians of his day, there are documents that are more systematic in nature. Both his Exposition of Psalm CII and his Deutsche Theologia present a more systematized presentation of his theology and provide main themes which can provide a guide for constructing a framework for understanding his theology. While both these documents are written approximately twenty years apart and in response to different situations, they provide a similar approach to his theological thought. Both documents emphasize Christology. Exposition of Psalm CII and Deutsche Theologia talk about Christ from the outset. This evidence supports those who consider Christology to be the most important part of Schwenckfeld’s theology97. The way Schwenckfeld begins both documents with statements on Christ supports McLaughlin’s opinion that Christology is the “capstone” of his theology98. Schwenckfeld’s christological interests lead to other doctrinal matters that surface within both documents. His christological comments give raise to soteriological statements. These are found in his comments on Ps 102,6-10.23. They also can be found in fourteen of the twenty-six

94. H.J. SELDERHUIS, Calvin’s Theology of the Psalms (Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought), Grand Rapids, MI, Baker, 2007, p. 226. 95. CALVIN, Commentary on the Book of Psalms (n. 79), p. 97. 96. Ibid., p. 121. 97. SEGUENNY, The Christology of Caspar Schwenckfeld (n. 4); KRIEBEL, The Schwenkfelders in America (n. 4), p. 7; ERB, Schwenckfeld in His Reformation Setting (n. 4), pp. 75-76. 98. MCLAUGHLIN, Caspar Schwenckfeld (n. 8), p. 219.

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questions that are asked and answered in Deutsche Theologia. Soteriological ideas, along with Christology, form the largest part of these documents; this agrees with Maier’s viewpoint that the person and work of Christ is Schwenckfeld’s theology at its core99. These soteriological ideas include the spiritual need of all humanity, the quickening of the Holy Spirit, conversion from sin, submission to Christ, and the importance of the rebirth and the new man. A third theological theme found in Exposition of Psalm CII and Deutsche Theologia is ecclesiology. The people of God in Christ is a significant theme for Schwenckfeld. He believes in an invisible church that is based on the inner working of divine grace. The church is an outgrowth of salvation, rebirth and the new man. It is formed by the Holy Spirit and those who are so moved as to enter into the discipleship of the cross and suffering. There is no mention of the outer form of the church100. The church’s unity is assumed all through the comments on Psalm 102. There is no mention of the relationship between church and state. No word is said about the sacraments. Schwenckfeld’s Christology and soteriology prepare for his understanding of ecclesiology. Schwenckfeld’s theology shows similarities to that of Luther and Calvin. Christology, soteriology, and ecclesiology are all major themes. Schwenckfeld distinguishes himself from the others because his theology is more christologically focused101. He does not mention justification as frequently as Luther and Calvin, although he speaks of the importance of rebirth and the new man. Like Luther and Calvin, Schwenckfeld believes that the church is not an institution primarily but is based on those who have been called by their Savior. All three see the church as being governed by Christ only. For Schwenckfeld the church is more spiritual in nature and requires holy conduct102. ETF – Howard Henry Drake WILLIAMS III Evangelische Theologische Faculteit Sint-Jansbergsesteenweg 95-97 BE-3001 Leuven Belgium [email protected] 99. MAIER, Caspar Schwenckfeld on the Person and Work of Christ (n. 5), pp. 2-5. 100. EBERLEIN, Ketzer oder Heiliger (n. 7), p. 179. 101. Cf. McLaughlin who has stated, “Few if any sixteenth-century reformers were more Christocentric than Schwenckfeld”. MCLAUGHLIN, Spiritualism (n. 17), p. 131. 102. See C. SCHWENCKFELD, What, Who, or Where the True Christian Church Is, in WILLIAMS (ed.), Caspar Schwenckfeld (n. 57), pp. 151-152.

THE UNFINISHED REFORMATION THE SCRIPTURAL RENEWAL OF CATHOLIC THEOLOGY SINCE THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

In advance of the recent quincentenary anniversary, many asked about the status of the sixteenth-century movement, initiated by Protestants, to reform the Church of their day according to the Word of God1. I have chosen to investigate an equally momentous yet complementary issue: the status of the twentieth-century movement, initiated by Catholics, to reform the Church of their day according to the Word of God. By providing a review of Catholic endorsements of the supreme (though not solitary) authority of Scripture over the last century, I will illustrate the ecumenical convergence of these reform movements separated by 400 years. This history of doctrinal development is crucial for understanding why the current head of the Catholic Church can sound like a modern-day Martin Luther in his admonition for Catholics to treat their Bibles like their cell phones. Pope Francis suggests that Catholics ought to keep a Bible with them always, consult it “several times a day”, trust it to provide directions, and revere it as their most precious possession2. I will narrate in three stages the process of reform that has led both magisterial and lay Catholics to esteem Scripture in this manner. I begin by documenting the emerging Catholic interest in the scriptural renewal of theology during the first half of the twentieth century (I). I next show how this return to Scripture is officially endorsed midcentury by the Second Vatican Council (II). In the third and longest section of this article, I then review five case studies of influential Catholic theologians who respond to the Council’s mandate by integrating Scripture with diverse forms of theology (III). I conclude by noting the ecumenical significance of these developments from the prior 100 years (IV).

1. A prominent example of such is provided in M.A. NOLL – C. NYSTROM, Is the Reformation Over? An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism, Grand Rapids, MI, Baker Academic, 2005. 2. FRANCIS, Angelus Message, 5 March 2017; http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/ en/angelus/2017/documents/papa-francesco_angelus_20170305.html.

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I. PRECONCILIAR ATTENTION TO SCRIPTURE The increasing respect for Scripture manifested by Catholics across the twentieth century takes place against a historical backdrop of contrastive self-definition in relation to Protestant exaltations of Scripture. Dominican Servais Pinckaers suggests that within the immediate aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, “the absolute priority given by Protestantism to Scripture … led Catholic theologians to emphasize the teaching of tradition and to keep their distance from Scripture”3. The same attitude is evident as recently as 1920 in the work of Jesuit Thomas Slater. He argues that Catholics and Protestants possess “two fundamentally different conceptions” of Christian theology. Protestants like Luther “substituted the Bible for the Church”, mistakenly giving the former priority over the latter. By retaining the primacy of ecclesial teaching, Catholics alone can construct theology on its true foundation4. It is in relation to this contrastive history that the twentieth-century Catholic recovery of the primacy of Scripture appears both remarkable and remarkably promising for the restoration of Christian unity. I will next illustrate how popes, theologians, and laity alike contributed to this recovery during the first six decades of the twentieth century. 1. Popes Theological engagement with Scripture is enjoined for all Catholics in papal admonitions promulgated around the first half of the twentieth century. Just before the turn of the century, Pope Leo XIII issues an encyclical that advocates a renewed emphasis on the study of Scripture among Catholic scholars and priests. Leo conveys himself as being entirely consistent with his patristic, scholastic, and papal predecessors in extoling what he calls the “singular” and “eminent” authority of Scripture. He even concedes that the “infallible magisterium of the Church rests also on the authority of Holy Scripture”. It follows therefore that Scripture ought to be the most essential reference for theologians and priests. Indeed, states Leo, “The whole teaching of Theology should be pervaded and animated by the use of the divine Word of God … [in] the Sacred Writings”5. 3. S. PINCKAERS, The Sources of Christian Ethics, Washington, DC, Catholic University of America, 1995 (1985), p. 288. 4. T. SLATER, The Foundation of True Morality, New York, Benziger Brothers, 1920, pp. 5-6, 39. 5. LEO XIII, Providentissimus Deus, 18 November 1893, 4-5, 16-17; http://w2.vatican. va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18111893_providentissimusdeus.html.

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In 1943, on the fiftieth anniversary of Leo’s ground-breaking encyclical, Pope Pius XII issues his own encyclical that endorses and extends this momentum for the scriptural renewal of theology. Like Leo, Pius also emphasizes the singularity of Scripture. Catholics owe it “the greatest veneration” because it is “the most precious source of doctrine of faith and morals”. Yet in Pius’ imagination, the use for this supremely authoritative source is fairly circumscribed. The theological function of Scripture is limited to confirming and illustrating truths already given by the dogmatic tradition of the Catholic Church6. Thus theology can conform to this pattern by providing sparse scriptural prooftexts that support its claims; theology need not adopt the terms, motifs, or literary forms of Scripture itself. 2. Theologians During the middle decades of the twentieth century, Catholic theology transitions from being merely congruent with Scripture to being fulsomely engaged with Scripture. I will review the work of two key populations that facilitate this change: ressourcement theologians and moral theologians. The former comprise a loose coalition with the shared aim of recovering the importance of historical sources predating the medieval era. Of special interest to them are Scripture and the biblical theology modeled by theologians from the first millennium. Within the context of France from 1930 to 1960, such advocacy seems novel and therefore leads critics to label the movement Nouvelle théologie. This suspicion abates over time as several ressourcement theologians are eventually named cardinals: Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, Jean Daniélou, and Joseph Ratzinger. Hans Urs von Balthasar is especially articulate about the primacy of Scripture for theology. He advocates a recovery of the patristic notions of Scripture as the body of the Logos, the penultimate sublimity (second only to the blood of Christ), Christ’s wedding gift to the Church, and the Word of God expressed in “unequaled clarity, simplicity, [and] precision”7. Thus exalted, Scripture is “above the Church” and “above any other word concerning God”8. Balthasar’s explicit emphasis on scriptural “primacy” implies that both ecclesial tradition and the magisterium “are ruled by 6. PIUS XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu, 30 September 1943, 1, 50; http://w2.vatican.va/ content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_30091943_divino-afflante-spiritu. html. 7. H.U. VON BALTHASAR, The Word, Scripture and Tradition, in A.V. LITTLEDALE – A. DRU (trans.), Explorations in Theology. Vol. 1: The Word Made Flesh, San Francisco, CA, Ignatius Press, 1989 (1960), 11-26, pp. 15-19. 8. Ibid., pp. 17, 24.

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the Bible”9. The ecumenical promise of ressourcement theologians like Balthasar is evident from the positive treatment he and his colleagues receive from contemporary Protestants10. Indeed, Reformed theologian John Webster remarks that “much mainstream Protestant theology … has come to hold the achievement of ressourcement theology in high esteem”11. Moral theologians comprise yet another group of Catholics who advocate in the early twentieth century for the primacy of Scripture in theology. The preceding tradition of offering moral instruction to priests through the use of manuals had left the academic field far removed from Scripture. The first to address this absence is Fritz Tillmann. Though initially trained in the discipline of New Testament, he is forbidden to teach Scripture after the Consistorial Congregation at the Vatican condemns his non-traditional solution to the synoptic problem. Rather than abandon the lectern entirely, Tillmann switches to teach another discipline. He applies his scriptural knowledge to crafting what Ratzinger calls an “avant-garde moral theology” that reorients the field toward the primacy of Scripture12. James Keenan likewise praises Tillmann’s work for being “inestimable” and “one of the most significant developments in twentieth-century Roman Catholic moral theology”13. Tillmann’s 1937 moral theology handbook, The Master Calls, stretches to over 300 pages yet cites no source other than Scripture. He innovatively portrays the moral life of a Christian as a response to being adopted as God’s child. Because one is guaranteed God’s gracious acceptance, one can gradually conform one’s life to the pattern of God’s perfect child: Jesus14. At exactly the same time that the Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer is emphasizing the “cost of discipleship”, Tillmann derives

9. H.U. VON BALTHASAR, Holy Scripture, trans. J. HOLMES, in Nova et Vetera (English ed.) 5 (2007) 712-724, p. 721. 10. The most effusive example of such is provided in H. BOERSMA, “Nouvelle Théologie” and Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery, New York, Oxford University Press, 2009. 11. J. WEBSTER, “Ressourcement” Theology and Protestantism, in G. FLYNN – P.D. MURRAY (eds.), “Ressourcement”: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theology, New York, Oxford University Press, 2011, 482-494, p. 482. 12. J. RATZINGER, Relationship between Magisterium and Exegetes, 10 May 2003; http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/pcb_documents/rc_con_cfaith_ doc_20030510_ratzinger-comm-bible_en.html. 13. J.F. KEENAN, History of Catholic Moral Theology in the Twentieth Century: From Confessing Sins to Liberating Consciences, New York, Continuum, 2010, pp. 61, 69. 14. F. TILLMANN, The Master Calls: A Handbook of Christian Living, trans. G.J. ROETTGER, Baltimore, MD, Helicon, 1961 (1937), pp. 3-5, 10, 27.

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a similar lesson from the same scriptural passages15. Luke 9 and 14 imply that every child of God will be able to “sacrifice all” in displaying “absolute conformity to the will of God”. Again in consonance with Bonhoeffer, Tillmann regards the “foundation of the moral life” to be the will of God as it is conveyed in the divine commands recorded in Scripture – especially the double-love command16. Tillmann is not the only Catholic scholar seeking to develop a thoroughly scriptural moral theology before the 1960s. Dominican Ceslaus Spicq claims that morality is “primarily a matter of obedience” to the will of God as revealed in Scripture17. Likewise, Jesuit Gérard Gilleman composes a book called The Primacy of Charity in Moral Theology. He self-consciously relies on Tillmann in suggesting that the moral life of a Christian is “a cross carried in the wake of love” – particularly the “gushing” love of God revealed in Scripture18. Odon Lottin also laments that moral theology has become cut off from Scripture, which is its proper heart and “living source”19. Lastly, Rudolf Schnackenburg proposes that moral theology ought to be organized around the primary theme of Jesus’ own teaching: the “gospel of the reign of God”20. These scholars lay the initial groundwork for the development of a Catholic moral theology that is thoroughly (rather than anecdotally) scriptural. Such a reorientation brings greater emphasis on God’s initiating love in Christ and the believer’s consequent response of grateful love for God and neighbor.

15. D. BONHOEFFER, Discipleship, ed. G.B. KELLY – J.D. GODSEY, trans. B. GREEN – R. KRAUSS, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 2001 (1937). 16. TILLMANN, The Master Calls (n. 14), pp. 6, 30-31, 125, 140. 17. C. SPICQ, Our Moral Life and the Blessed Trinity according to St. Paul, in Doctrine and Life 7 (1957) 134-144, p. 134. See also the book-length elaboration of the perspective from this article at ID., Saint Paul and Christian Living, trans. M. AQUINAS, Dublin, Gill and Son, 1963. 18. G. GILLEMAN, The Primacy of Charity in Moral Theology, ed. R. CARPENTIER, trans. W.F. RYAN – A. VACHON, Westminster, MD, Newman, 1959 (1952), pp. xxvi, 188. 19. O. LOTTIN, Au cœur de la morale chrétienne: Bible, tradition, philosophie, Tournai, Desclée, 1957, p. 6. 20. R. SCHNACKENBURG, The Moral Teaching of the New Testament, trans. J. HOLLANDSMITH – W.J. O’HARA, New York, Herder and Herder, 1965 (1954). Among those mentioned in this paragraph, Schnackenburg’s work may be the most influential. Pope Benedict XVI includes Schnackenburg among “the most prominent” Catholic exegetes in the latter half of the twentieth century. See BENEDICT XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. A.J. WALKER, New York, Doubleday, 2007, pp. xii-xiii.

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3. Laity These theologians who promote the scriptural renewal of Catholic theology around midcentury understand themselves as responding to earlier papal direction as well as the demands of Catholic laity. For instance, Ratzinger reports that, in the first half of the twentieth century, there emerges “a fundamentally new attitude to Scripture in large areas of Catholic Christendom, giving rise to a new familiarity with it”. By calling this groundswell of interest in Scripture “a new spiritual fact”21, Ratzinger signals the ecumenical implications of this development. His locution echoes the language used by William Temple at his 1944 installation as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Temple declares that “the great new fact of our era” is God’s construction of “a Christian fellowship which now extends into almost every nation”22. The midcentury enthusiasm for Scripture among both Catholic and Protestant laity is thus a significant point of commonality in their dawning awareness of sharing in a global fellowship. The Cursillo movement, which one historian of religion calls “the premier Catholic lay movement” of the mid-twentieth century, also illustrates the ecumenical potential of the scriptural renewal movement. After being founded in Spain in the 1940s, this lay-led Catholic program of retreats and small group Bible studies quickly spreads not only among global Catholics but also among several Protestant denominations23. Some of those who participate in such retreats then serve as leaders for charismatic renewal movements that erupt among diverse Christian confessions during the early 1960s. The shared reverence for Scripture and experience of the Holy Spirit among lay Catholics and Protestants allows them to display ecumenical sympathy toward one another24. Congar identifies this emerging interest in Scripture among Catholic laity as a unique opportunity for promoting Christian unity. In the early 1960s, he claims that the “full-scale biblical renewal” among Catholics means that they are now alike to Protestants in gaining spiritual succor 21. J. RATZINGER, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation: Origin and Background, trans. W. GLEN-DOEPEL, in H. VORGRIMLER (ed.), Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, vol. 3, New York, Herder and Herder, 1969, 155-166, p. 158, emphasis added. 22. W. TEMPLE, Sermon Preached at the Enthronement in Canterbury Cathedral on St. George’s Day, 1942, in The Church Looks Forward, London, Macmillan, 1944, p. 2. 23. K. NABHAN-WARREN, The Cursillo Movement in America: Catholics, Protestants, and Fourth-Day Spirituality, Chapel Hill, NC, University of North Carolina, 2013, pp. 1-2, 259, n. 4. 24. J. MANNEY, Before Duquesne: Sources of the Renewal, in New Covenant, February 1973, 12-17.

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from Scripture. He thus holds out hope that the Bible can function as “the book of reconciliation among Christians”25. Therefore the aspiration to reform the Catholic Church by elevating and engaging Scripture is manifested during the first six decades of the twentieth century among popes, theologians, and laity. According to Ratzinger, the bishops gathered at the Second Vatican Council do not initiate but merely extend this groundswell of devotion to Scripture26. II. VATICAN II

ON THE

SCRIPTURAL RENOVATION OF THEOLOGY

When Pope Saint John XXIII opens the first session of the Second Vatican Council in 1962, he cites the prayer of Jesus from John 17 as the scriptural warrant for his aim of promoting “visible unity in truth” among “the entire Christian family”. He also quotes several other scriptural passages in making a case for Catholic leadership in repairing the breach between Catholics and “separated” Christians like the Orthodox and Protestants27. After the death of John, Pope Saint Paul VI continues to promote the scriptural basis for reforms conducive to Christian unity. His address at the opening of the second session of the Council likewise cites John 17 as the inspiration for continuing in the “spiritual drama” of seeking unity with “separated brethren” from other Christian confessions. Acknowledging the culpability of Catholics in contributing to the present separation, Paul resolves to pursue with vigor the reforms necessary to focus the Catholic Church on that which is essential. He adds, “The first requirement of this reform will certainly be a more diligent study and a more intensive proclamation of the Word of God”28. The elevation of Scripture at the Council is also visually enacted at the start of each session when the book of the gospels is solemnly enthroned29. Given the scriptural focus of popes John and Paul, it is not surprising that the final documents of the Council call for the renovation of theology by a redoubled engagement with Scripture. The Decree on the 25. Y. CONGAR, The Revelation of God, trans. A. MANSON – L.C. SHEPPARD, New York, Herder and Herder, 1968 (1962), pp. 37-39. 26. RATZINGER, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (n. 21), pp. 158-159. 27. JOHN XXIII, Opening General Congregation, in F. ANDERSON (ed.), Council Daybook: Vatican II, vol. 1, Washington, DC, National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1965 (1962), 25-29. 28. PAUL VI, Opening General Congregation, in Council Daybook, vol. 1 (n. 27), (1963), 143-150, pp. 147-148. 29. J.W. O’MALLEY, What Happened at Vatican II?, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, 2008, p. 32.

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Training of Priests calls for seminarians to become diligent and daily students of Scripture, since it uniquely comprises “the very soul of all theology”. Theological education should begin with Scripture and only thereafter address the subsequent Catholic tradition. The functions of tradition are chiefly preserving, transmitting, and expositing those truths revealed in Scripture. This decree furthermore specifies that the discipline of moral theology deserves special attention, as it needs to be improved by “drawing more fully on the teaching of Holy Scripture”30. This priority of Scripture is also apparent when the bishops commissioned to prepare a report on the Word of God reject the initial schema that had cast tradition and Scripture as dual sources of revelation. The failure in that configuration, according to a speech that Ratzinger delivers at the Council, is that no theological truth is known “solely by tradition independently of Scripture”. The consistent witness of Christian history is that “Scripture is the sole material principle of revelation”. Thus it is more consistent with Catholic theology to say “tradition is simply scriptura in ecclesia”31. In their final version of the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, the bishops uniquely characterize Scripture as the “true” Word of God. Thus the Gospel is depicted as “the source of all saving truth and moral law”. Church teaching, by contrast, cannot govern Scripture but must rather serve that by which it is “ruled”32. Ratzinger emphasizes that these phrases are intentionally worded to accommodate the elaboration of a distinctively “Catholic idea of sola scriptura”33. Jesuit Karl Rahner, who exerts a substantial influence on the deliberations of the Council, likewise affirms that “sola scriptura … must be recognized by Catholic dogmatic theology”. Recovering the ecumenical scope of this affirmation permits Catholics to join Protestants in designating the unique authority of Scripture, which is not subject to any external criterion. By contrast, the secondary authorities of “tradition and the teaching 30. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Optatam Totius: Decree on the Training of Priests, in A. FLANNERY (ed.), Vatican Council II: The Basic Sixteen Documents, trans. S. FAGAN, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 1996 (1965), 365-384, p. 376 at § 16. 31. J. RATZINGER, On the Schema “On the Sources of Revelation” (1962), trans. J. WICKS, in J. WICKS, Six Texts by Prof. Joseph Ratzinger as Peritus before and during Vatican Council II, in Gregorianum 89 (2008) 233-311, pp. 273, 275, 277. 32. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Dei Verbum: Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, in FLANNERY (ed.), Vatican Council II (n. 30), trans. L. WALSH – W. HARRINGTON – A. FLANNERY (1965), 97-116, pp. 101, 103, 112-113 at §§ 7, 10, 21, 24. 33. J. RATZINGER, The Transmission of Divine Revelation, in VORGRIMLER (ed.), Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, vol. 3 (n. 21), 181-198, p. 192.

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office … have their material source and their norma non normata only in Holy Scripture”34. The Council’s emphasis on Scripture directly promotes one of its “principal concerns”: namely, bringing Catholic theology into greater consonance with Protestant thought. Protestants are now regarded as spiritual siblings precisely because they revere Scripture. In fact, the bishops place special hope in the prospect that Protestants’ deep respect for Scripture might serve as a valuable basis for restoring Christian unity now that Catholics are displaying the same. More remarkably still, the bishops bring the Catholic Church very proximate to a Protestant vision of ecclesial renewal by confessing that “Christ summons the Church … to that continual reformation of which she has need”35. While this declaration omits Reformed Christians’ specification that ecclesial reform is always “according to the Word of God”36, the broader teachings of the Council are consonant with this addition. Already after the first session of the Council, Reformed theologian Karl Barth expresses his admiration for the scriptural earnestness expressed therein. He states on behalf of Protestants, The Bible of the Old and New Testaments was obviously for a long time past read more industriously and fruitfully in … the Roman Church than we had noticed … through this presence of the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures, has not Jesus Christ inevitably stepped anew into the center of … the thought of the Roman theologians37?

Barth even feels compelled to warn fellow Protestants that they may be in danger of being overtaken by Catholics in zeal for “renewing … the Church through the Word and Spirit of the Gospel”38. In light of 34. K. RAHNER, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. W.V. DYCH, New York, Crossroad, 1989 (1976), pp. 364-365. 35. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Unitatis Redintegratio: Decree on Ecumenism, in FLANNERY (ed.), Vatican Council II (n. 30), trans. B. TREACY (1964), 499-524, pp. 499, 502-503, 507, 519 at §§ 1, 3, 6, 21. See also the locution “ecclesia … semper purificanda” at SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Lumen Gentium: Constitutio Dogmatica de Ecclesia, 1964, 8; http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_ const_19641121_lumen-gentium_lt.html. 36. The origins of the motto, Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei, are obscure. While some trace similar expressions to seventeenth-century Dutch theologians, others identify the coiners as twentieth-century figures like Karl Barth, Jürgen Moltmann, or Edward Dowey. It is presently affirmed in the official polity documents of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). See The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Vol. 2: Book of Order, Louisville, KY, Office of the General Assembly, 2015, p. 9 at F-2.02. 37. K. BARTH, Thoughts on the Second Vatican Council, in Ecumenical Review 15 (1963) 357-367, p. 360. 38. Ibid., p. 364.

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the Council’s scriptural revitalization of theology, Barth claims, “We can only wish that we had something comparable”39. These positive evaluations by a critical outsider suggest that the scriptural renewal of Catholic theology enjoined by the Council is quite thorough. III. POSTCONCILIAR EMPHASIS ON SCRIPTURE The Council’s agenda for the scriptural reformation of Catholic theology brings several ecumenical advances in the ensuing decades. I will next illustrate these achievements with reference to five postconciliar examples: the biblical theology of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute, the manualist theology of Bernard Häring, the liberation theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the moral theology of Pope Saint John Paul II, and the systematic theology of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. 1. The Biblical Theology of Tantur Among the chief institutions created by Pope Saint Paul VI to pursue the ecumenical potential of the scriptural renewal enjoined by the Council is an “institute of higher studies for the history of salvation”40. The idea for establishing such a center is suggested to Paul in 1963 by Lutheran theologian Kristen Skydsgaard. Speaking on behalf of the 66 nonCatholic observers at the second session of the Council, Skydsgaard suggests that developing “a biblical theology which concentrates on the study of the history of salvation” may help facilitate an understanding of the nature and unity of the Church41. Paul immediately concurs with the importance of biblical theology focused on salvation history, even anticipating that he could found a new institution for promoting such study42. After participating in a pilgrimage to the Mount of Olives with Greek Patriarch Athenagoras I the following year, Paul relays to the 39. K. BARTH, “Ad Limina Apostolorum”: An Appraisal of Vatican II, trans. K.R. CRIM, Richmond, VA, John Knox, 1968, p. 17. 40. PAUL VI, Letter to Theodore Hesburgh, 18 January 1965, as quoted in P.D. GAFFNEY, Vatican II and Tantur, in T.S. LOWE (ed.), Hope of Unity: Living Ecumenism Today: Celebrating 40 Years of the Ecumenical Institute Tantur, Berlin, AphorismA, 2013, 13-42, pp. 29-30. 41. PAUL VI, Address to Non-Catholic Observers, in Council Daybook, vol. 1 (n. 27), (1963), 198-199, p. 199. 42. K.E. SKYDSGAARD, Address to Pope Paul VI, in Council Daybook, vol. 1 (n. 27), (1963), 197-198, p. 198.

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observers at the third session of the Council his intention to found an institute for biblical theology in Jerusalem. He intends this site to serve as a “memorial” of his historic encounter and a catalyst for ongoing ecumenical progress43. An Academic Council, comprised equally of Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox, is chartered in 1965 to implement Paul’s vision. Among these leaders are included two Catholic theologians whom I have previously cited (Congar and Schnackenburg) and one whom I will cite in the conclusion (Hesburgh)44. Since opening nearly 50 years ago, the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem has promoted scriptural and theological study as tools for ecumenical understanding. The center has hosted over 5,000 visitors from diverse Christian confessions45 and has been the site for several academic conferences46. It recently hosted a conference devoted to revisiting the biblical theology of salvation history as a resource for ecumenical reflection47. 2. The Manualist Theology of Häring The main architect of postconciliar reform of priestly manuals for theological training is Redemptorist Bernard Häring, arguably the most important Catholic moral theologian in the twentieth century48. Having served as a peritus at the Second Vatican Council, he then begins his 1978 manual of moral theology by quoting the very same lines that he initially helped compose. The first page of Free and Faithful in Christ 43. PAUL VI, Talk to Non-Catholic Observers, in F. ANDERSON (ed.), Council Daybook: Vatican II, vol. 2, Washington, DC, National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1965 (1964), 77-78. 44. GAFFNEY (ed.), Vatican II and Tantur (n. 40), pp. 31-32. 45. TANTUR ECUMENICAL INSTITUTE, History and Aims, 2018; http://tantur.org/aboutus/history-aims. 46. Christian Arab-Muslim Conference at Tantur, in Journal of Ecumenical Studies 22 (1985) 428-429; T.F. BEST – M. ROBRA (eds.), Ecclesiology and Ethics: Costly Commitment: Presentations and Reports from the World Council of Churches’ Consultation in Jerusalem, Geneva, World Council of Churches, 1995; L. CUNNINGHAM (ed.), Ecumenism: Present Realities and Future Prospects, Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 2001; J.C. CAVADINI – L. HOLT (eds.), Who Do You Say That I Am? Confessing the Mystery of Christ, Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 2004; A.M. AAGAARD, Proselytism and Privacy, in Ecumenical Review 50 (2009) 464-471; LOWE (ed.), Hope of Unity (n. 40). 47. UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME DEPARTMENT OF THEOLOGY, Salvation History Today, 2018; https://theology.nd.edu/events/tantur-summer-seminar. 48. B. STEWART, Bernard Haring, 85, Is Dead; Challenged Catholic Morality, in New York Times, 11 July 1998; http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/11/world/bernardharing-85-is-dead-challenged-catholic-morality.html.

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cites the famous passage from the Decree on the Training of Priests that calls for the scriptural “improvement” of moral theology. Häring uses this admonition as license for following “a quite different approach” than his predecessors. Rather than mining Scripture for prooftexts in support of claims deduced from a rationalistic system, he will “look first and mainly to the biblical perspective” as the authoritative guide to the Christian life49. This reorientation to Scripture implies that Catholic moral theology must become Christocentric. Thus he states, The principle, the norm, the center, and the goal of Christian Moral Theology is Christ … Through the love of Christ for us He invites our love in return … The Christian life is following Christ50.

Häring’s outlook is remarkably resonant with the theology of Bonhoeffer, who also regards the Christian life as essentially a matter of discipleship. Häring is well aware that a scriptural focus can bring Catholic moral theology into proximity with Protestant ethics. He even affirms that Luther and other Protestants were correct in opposing those forms of Catholic theology based on “a closed system of an autonomous human reason … [that] turns away from God”. As far as I am aware, Häring is the first theologian after the Council to advocate for an explicitly “ecumenical moral theology” amenable to all Christians51. He thus proposes a theology that is ecumenical because it is primarily scriptural. 3. The Liberation Theology of Gutiérrez Nor is Häring’s work the only innovative, influential, and scriptural account of Catholic theology to emerge in the first decade after the Council. Another example is provided by the liberation theology advanced by Dominican Gustavo Gutiérrez. Gerhard Cardinal Müller, a former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, judges that the liberation theology crafted by Gutiérrez is “one of the most significant currents of Catholic theology in the 20th century”52. Gutiérrez acknowledges in 1971 that his constructive theological proposal is a response to the changes commended by the Second Vatican 49. B. HÄRING, Free and Faithful in Christ: Moral Theology for Clergy and Laity, vol. 1, New York, Seabury, 1978, p. 7. 50. B. HÄRING, The Law of Christ: Moral Theology for Priests and Laity, vol. 1, trans. E.G. KAISER, Westminster, MD, Newman, 1961 (1954), p. vii. 51. HÄRING, Free and Faithful in Christ, vol. 1 (n. 49), pp. 312, 322, 324-325. 52. G. MÜLLER, Liberating Experience: A Stimulus for European Theology, in G. GUTIÉRREZ – G. MÜLLER (eds.), On the Side of the Poor: The Theology of Liberation, trans. R. KRIEG – J. NICKOLOFF, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 2015 (2004), 11-31, p. 11.

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Council – especially the call to rediscover “a more biblical view” of the Christian life53. His quotations and references show that he is drawing these biblical insights from several figures whom I have already cited: Rahner, Congar, and Häring54. In the opening sentence of his landmark book, A Theology of Liberation, Gutiérrez describes his reflections as attentive to the needs of Latin Americans but “based on the gospel”. Thus his aim is not to justify an antecedent political ideology but to let his thought “be judged by the word of the Lord”55. Indeed, it is just as important for Catholics to read the Bible as it is for them to acknowledge that the Bible reads them56. In this vein, Gutiérrez approvingly cites a statement by the Peruvian bishops who affirm, “The supreme norms of truth in ethical and religious matters are to be found in revelation … Praxis … is always subordinate to revelation”57. Gutiérrez conveys Scripture as being doubly significant for the moral vision of liberation theology. First, the God disclosed in the scriptural witness expresses a “preferential love” for the world’s poor58. Thus the primary reason for Christians to focus on the plight of the poor is that “in the Bible poverty … is considered an evil”59. Second, unless one has learned of God’s grace in Christ via the story of Scripture, one will not be able to meet the “limitless demands” of this ethic of divine imitation. Gutiérrez thus proposes “an ethics that has its roots in the gratuitousness of God’s love”. Only by being empowered by the divine grace that is distinctively revealed in Scripture can disciples of Jesus show “preferential solidarity with the poor”60. The scriptural cast of Gutiérrez’s thought has made it particularly attractive to numerous Protestants. For one thing, he develops and refines his account through direct dialogue with Protestants like Rubem Alves (Presbyterian), Jose Míguez Bonino (Methodist), and Jürgen Moltmann (Reformed). Such conversations are facilitated under the auspices of organizations affiliated with the World Council of Churches like Church and Society in Latin America (ISAL) as well as Society, Development and 53. G. GUTIÉRREZ, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, rev. ed., ed. and trans. C. INDA – J. EAGLESON, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 1988 (1971), pp. 6, 11. 54. Ibid., pp. 179-181 nn. 18, 23, 38. 55. Ibid., p. xiii. 56. G. GUTIÉRREZ, The God of Life, trans. M.J. O’CONNELL, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 1991 (1989), p. xvii. 57. GUTIÉRREZ, A Theology of Liberation (n. 53), pp. xxxiv, 177 n. 21. 58. GUTIÉRREZ, The God of Life (n. 56), pp. xv-xvi. 59. G. GUTIÉRREZ, Notes for a Theology of Liberation, in Theological Studies 31 (1970) 243-261, p. 260. 60. GUTIÉRREZ, The God of Life (n. 56), pp. 119-121, 132, 136.

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Peace (SODEPAX)61. For another thing, Gutiérrez collaborates directly with the African Methodist Episcopal theologian James Cone, who is among the key founders of black liberation theology. These two co-teach a course in 1976 at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Afterwards, Cone gratefully remarks that black theologians – the preponderance of whom are Protestant – had “learned much from [Gutiérrez] in particular and Latin American liberation theology generally”62. Thus the work of Gutiérrez illustrates how pursuing a scriptural vision of liberation can lead Catholics into both academic and practical collaboration with Protestants animated by the same concern. 4. The Moral Theology of John Paul II Häring and Gutiérrez illustrate the intellectual potential, spiritual vitality, and moral earnestness that Catholic theology can convey when it is reconnected with the supreme authority of Scripture. Their proposals contribute to a sweeping transformation of Catholic thought immediately after the Second Vatican Council63. So swiftly are attitudes changing that Edna McDonagh can declare in the early 1970s that the former modes of Catholic moral theology had become “almost entirely irrelevant” within the span of a mere decade64. Yet not all Catholic theologians share in the enthusiasm to reform theology according to the scriptural pattern prescribed by the Council. In the later 1970s and throughout the 1980s, several influential theologians reject the particularity of a scripturally-inflected moral theology and advocate instead for an “autonomous ethic”. The latter approach is chiefly articulated in terms of a rationalist natural law, and it is supported

61. For a summary of the ISAL collaborations between Gutiérrez and Emilio Castro, Julio de Santa Ana, Rubem Alves, and Jose Míguez Bonino, see L. BOFF – C. BOFF, Introducing Liberation Theology, trans. P. BURNS, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 1987, p. 69. For the proceedings of the 1969 SODEPAX conference at which Gutiérrez presented along with Rubem Alves and Jürgen Moltmann, see In Search of a Theology of Development, Geneva, Committee on Society, Development and Peace, 1970. 62. J.H. CONE, From Geneva to São Paulo: A Dialogue between Black Theology and Latin American Liberation Theology, in ID. – G.S. WILMORE (eds.), Black Theology: A Documentary History, vol. 2, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 1993, 371-387, p. 376. 63. Other proponents of change include Gustav Ermecke, Philip Delhaye, Konrad Hilpert, Heinz Schürmann, Klaus Demmer, Michael Simpson, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Servais Pinckaers, and Bernard Stoeckle. For a summary of the thought of these figures, see V. MACNAMARA, Faith and Ethics: Recent Roman Catholicism, Washington, DC, Georgetown University Press, 1985, pp. 55-66. 64. E. MCDONAGH, Invitation and Response: Essays in Christian Moral Theology, New York, Sheed and Ward, 1972, p. vii.

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by Alfons Auer, Franz Böckle, Charles Curran, Josef Fuchs, Gerard Hughes, Richard McCormick, Edward Schillebeeckx, Bruno Schüller, and several others. These figures claim that the moral judgments of Christians are accessible to any rational agent, so moral theology should be based on natural law as opposed to scriptural premises in order to secure the universal intelligibility of such judgments65. This counter-proposal to develop an autonomous ethic is challenged in the ensuing decades by several Catholic theologians. Of particular significance is the opposition of Pope Saint John Paul II. In his 1993 encyclical, Veritatis Splendor, he argues that Catholic moral theology, even when expressed in the idiom of natural law, cannot be isolated from its scriptural foundation. He presents this teaching as a faithful response to the Second Vatican Council’s call for the scriptural renewal of moral theology. The fundamental basis of this discipline is simple: “Only God, the Supreme Good, constitutes the unshakable foundation … of morality”66. Thus the authoritative instruction given by God provides the standard of morality. This divine pedagogy comes in three forms: Scripture, ecclesial tradition, and natural law. Scripture is primary for moral theology and the norm for the other two vehicles of divine teaching. John Paul not only tells but also shows this priority. In the apt estimation of moral theologian William Spohn, this encyclical is more reliant on Scripture than any other papal document produced in the last two millennia67. John Paul illustrates the significance of Scripture by depicting moral theology as “scientific reflection on the Gospel” and moral theologians as those who “clarify ever more fully the biblical foundations” of morality. The Church also plays an essential and authoritative role in propagating, interpreting, and applying God’s inscripturated word. John Paul gives special emphasis to his own Spirit-guaranteed office of helping Catholics understand God’s moral expectations in contemporary contexts68. Lastly, God’s moral will may also be apprehended in the natural law, which is known by every person via the rational faculty of conscience. Not only does John Paul

65. For a summary of the thought of these figures, see MACNAMARA, Faith and Ethics (n. 63), pp. 37-55. 66. JOHN PAUL II, Veritatis Splendor 7, 29, 99, 115; http://www.vatican.va/holy_ father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor_en. html. 67. W.C. SPOHN, Morality on the Way of Discipleship: The Use of Scripture in “Veritatis Splendor”, in M.E. ALLSOPP – J.J. O’KEEFE (eds.), “Veritatis Splendor”: American Responses, Kansas City, MO, Sheed and Ward, 1995, 83-105, p. 83. 68. JOHN PAUL II, Veritatis Splendor (n. 66), 4, 109-110.

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justify the revelatory function of the natural law on scriptural grounds69; he also insists that conscience can err and thus needs to be corrected by Scripture. Therefore, reason simpliciter is not a reliable moral guide; one can only trust “reason enlightened by Divine Revelation”70. John Paul then employs this theocentric and scriptural account of morality to rebuff those moral theologians who advocate an “autonomous” morality. Such persons affirm the “complete sovereignty of reason”, which implies that morality can be apprehended independently of all theological matters. To the contrary, asserts John Paul, reason alone cannot create moral norms; it merely discovers those norms that originate from God. A properly Catholic view instead conveys the essence of morality as following Christ in response to the initiating love of God for humanity71. Russell Hittinger regards it as a sign of “the disrepair of Catholic moral theology” that a pope would need to instruct theologians “that natural law does not constitute a sphere of immunity … from the plan of divine laws”. Sensitive to the Protestant response to this intramural debate among Catholics, Hittinger regards it as ecumenically salutary that “Veritatis Splendor reintegrates natural law into the dogmatic theology of revelation”72. John Paul is far from alone in calling for the development of a scriptural account of natural law, for numerous Catholic theologians have been making this case since the 1960s. They propose recasting natural law as Christ-centered (Enda McDonagh), biblical (Matthew Levering), theonomous (Russell Hittinger), Gospel-fulfilled (International Theological Commission), and “neither philosophical nor classical but scriptural” (Jean Porter)73. Partly in response to such claims, Protestants are increasingly warming to natural law as an essential facet of a scriptural theology. I have written elsewhere about the historical precedents for

69. For citations of Jeremiah 31, Romans 2, and 2 Corinthians 3, see ibid., 12, 45, 57. 70. Ibid., 44, 62. 71. Ibid., 4-5, 36, 40, 75, 10-11. 72. R. HITTINGER, The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World, Wilmington, DE, ISI, 2003, pp. 31, 33-34. 73. E. MCDONAGH, The Natural Law and the Law of Christ, in G.R. DUNSTAN (ed.), Duty and Discernment, London, SCM, 1975 (1969), 51-63, pp. 61-62; M. LEVERING, Biblical Natural Law: A Theocentric and Teleological Approach, New York, Oxford University Press, 2008; HITTINGER, The First Grace (n. 72), p. 33; INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL COMMISSION OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, In Search of a Universal Ethic: A New Look at the Natural Law, 2009, 109, 112; http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/ congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20090520_legge-naturale_en. html; J. PORTER, Natural Law as a Scriptural Concept: Theological Reflections on a Medieval Theme, in Theology Today 59 (2002) 226-243, p. 228.

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such a recovery and its ecumenical promise74. In an important sense, the Catholic turn to Scripture and the Protestant turn to natural law are thus complementary returns that converge by recovering the richness of their respective theological traditions. 5. The Systematic Theology of the Joint Declaration The elevation of Scripture among Catholics has born ecumenical fruit not only in the realms of biblical, manualist, liberation, and moral theology. It has also helped advance an ecumenical form of systematic theology. Among the most significant illustrations of such is the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ). Since this document was first endorsed by global representatives of Catholics and Lutherans in 1999, it has acquired the official endorsement of the largest representative bodies of Methodists, Reformed, and Anglicans75. The statement affirms, “By grace alone … and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God … Through Christ alone are we justified … Sinners are justified by faith”76. This declaration explicitly incorporates the Protestant watchwords of sola gratia and solus Christus (though not quite sola fide77). The JDDJ is unique in several respects. Among the dialogues with communions issued from the Reformation it remains the only dogmatic statement of the Catholic Church that was jointly authored with members 74. N. ARNER, Precedents and Prospects for Incorporating Natural Law in Protestant Ethics, in Scottish Journal of Theology 69 (2016) 375-388; ID., Ecumenical Ethics: Challenges to and Sources for a Common Moral Witness, in Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 36 (2016) 101-119. 75. LUTHERAN WORLD FEDERATION – PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN UNITY, Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, in Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity Information Service (1998), no. 98, 81-90; http://www.vatican. va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/information_service/documents/98_information_service_en.htm; WORLD METHODIST COUNCIL, Statement of Association with the Joint Declaration of the Doctrine of Justification, 23 July 2006; http://worldmethodistcouncil. org/resources/ecumenical-dialogues/wmcs-statement-of-assocation-with-the-joint-declaration-of-the-doctrine-of-justification; ANGLICAN CONSULTATIVE COUNCIL, Resolution 16.17: Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, April 2016; http://www.anglicancommunion.org/structures/instruments-of-communion/acc/acc-16/resolutions.aspx#s17; WORLD COMMUNION OF REFORMED CHURCHES, Association with the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, 5 July 2017; http://wcrc.ch/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/ wcrc-association-to-jddj-en.pdf. 76. Joint Declaration (n. 75), pp. 83-84 at §§ 15-16, 25. 77. See the explanation for abstaining from this particular affirmation ibid., p. 84 at §§ 26-27. Rahner, by contrast, endorses sola fide since it asserts “nothing else but the other and subjective side of the sola gratia” (RAHNER, Foundations of Christian Faith [n. 34], p. 360).

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of a non-Catholic communion. It substantially resolves the key doctrinal dispute that split the Western Church in the sixteenth century. It furthermore represents the most broad agreement on doctrine ever achieved in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation. What enabled this significant convergence after a half-millennium of theological dissensus? According to the authors of the statement, the consensus was achieved chiefly by “listening to the word of God in Scripture”78. Jesuit Joseph Fitzmyer, who participated in ecumenical dialogues leading up to the initial endorsement of the JDDJ, affirms that such attainments are only possible because of “the prominence that the Bible had assumed in Roman Catholic life in the middle of the twentieth century”. Indeed, he regards Scripture as uniquely unitive among Christians. Being “a privileged norm, Scripture is the basic element … that all Churches involved in the ecumenical movement have in common”79. Healing so great a rift as the Catholic-Protestant difference on justification illustrates the power of mutual reverence for Scripture. One might even hope that today’s seemingly intractable disputes over other theological topics might also permit a “differentiated consensus” when explored through the prism of Scripture. Indeed, distinguished representatives of the Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed, and Anglican communions recently held a historic consultation to consider how they might extend yet further the theological consensus achieved by their shared endorsement of the JDDJ. The resulting agreement, the “Notre Dame Consultation Statement”, suggests that “justification calls for sanctification” that is manifested in the pursuit of social justice, the defense of human dignity, and the protection of creation. The representatives anticipate that theological consensus about these matters may be achieved and promoted via catechetical resources and a joint webpage80.

78. Joint Declaration (n. 75), p. 82 at § 8. 79. J.A. FITZMYER, Scripture, the Soul of Theology, New York, Paulist, 1994, p. 96. 80. PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN UNITY, WORLD METHODIST COUNCIL, ANGLICAN COMMUNION, LUTHERAN WORLD FEDERATION, WORLD COMMUNION OF REFORMED CHURCHES, Notre Dame Consultation Statement, March 2019; http://www. christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-occidentale/dialoghi-multilaterali/other-documents-and-events/statement-consultation-notre-dame-university.html.

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IV. CONCLUSION Far from being merely anecdotal, each of these five postconciliar examples exerts a globally significant influence. I realize that some controversy attends the work of Häring, Gutiérrez, and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity – not least because the work of all three was scrutinized at some point by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith81. Yet none of those inquiries resulted in censure, and Pope Francis has gone out of his way to praise Häring, Gutiérrez, and the Catholic-Lutheran dialogue82. In relation to the latter, Francis even stated in a joint prayer service with Lutherans that marked the Reformation quincentenary, With gratitude we acknowledge that the Reformation helped give greater centrality to sacred Scripture in the Church’s life. Through shared hearing of the word of God in the Scriptures, important steps forward have been taken in the dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation … Let us ask the Lord that his word may keep us united83.

I am also aware that my preceding examples draw from only a subset of the international Catholic landscape. Catholics in areas other than Europe and the Americas are expressing enthusiasm for the study of Scripture. James Okoye’s summary of the bishops’ reports from the 2008 Synod on the Word of God conveys a strong desire for more access to, familiarity with, and practical application of Scripture among Catholics in Africa, Asia, and Oceania84. 81. STEWART, Bernard Haring (n. 48); CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Ten Observations on the Theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez, in A.T. HENNELLY (ed. and trans.), Liberation Theology: A Documentary History, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 1990 (1983), 348-350; CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH – PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN UNITY, Response of the Catholic Church to the Joint Declaration of the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation on the Doctrine of Justification, in Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity Information Service (1998), no. 98, 93-95; http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/ information_service/documents/98_information_service_en.htm. 82. J.J. MCELWEE, Pope Meets with Liberation Theology Pioneer, in National Catholic Reporter, 25 September 2013; https://www.ncronline.org/news/theology/pope-meetsliberation-theology-pioneer; FRANCIS, To Have Courage and Prophetic Audacity: Dialogue with 36th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, 24 October 2016, p. 3; http://jesuits.org/Assets/Publications/File/GC36-Dialogue_of_Pope_Francis_English.pdf. 83. FRANCIS, Homily during Common Ecumenical Prayer at the Lutheran Cathedral of Lund, 31 October 2016; http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2016/documents/papa-francesco_20161031_omelia-svezia-lund.html. 84. J.C. OKOYE, The Word of God on the Five Continents, in Scripture in the Church: The Synod on the Word of God and the Post-Synodal Exhortation “Verbum Domini”, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2011, 22-37.

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The evidence that I have cited above supports my claim that Leo XIII and Pius XII, building on an emerging lay enthusiasm, successfully initiated a scriptural renewal of Catholic theology in the early twentieth century. That direction of reform received global endorsement at the Second Vatican Council and was then implemented broadly by numerous theologians in subsequent decades. There is still more work to be done to achieve a thoroughgoing renovation of the Catholic Church according to Scripture. Yet it is important to note, now 500 years after the start of the Protestant Reformation, that Catholic and Protestant communions alike understand their vocation as submitting to continual reform according to the Word of God. Christians committed to such reformation are therefore finding themselves – like iron filings before a magnet – in orderly alignment with one another. These instances of ecumenical convergence are anticipated in 1967 by the president of the University of Notre Dame (and simultaneous founder of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute). In a speech at a Lutheran university given soon after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, Holy Cross priest Theodore Hesburgh states, One might hope that … Protestants and Catholics together may rediscover the meaning of ecclesia semper reformanda – the Church ever in need of renewal. The first Reformation, unfortunately, separated us. Let us hope and pray that this present reformation will unite us85.

I think it is worth celebrating in the immediate aftermath of this Reformation anniversary the respects in which shared concern for reforming Christ’s one Church according to Scripture has been and may continue to be a catalyst of Christian unity. University of Notre Dame Department of Theology 437 Malloy Hall Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA [email protected]

Neil ARNER

85. T.M. HESBURGH, The Historical Evolution of the Catholic View of Luther, in Thoughts, vol. 4, Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 1967, 47-59, p. 58.

INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE EVANGELICAL AND CATHOLIC PERSPECTIVES

I. INTRODUCTION This article studies the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture, more particularly its development in Roman Catholic and evangelical theologies since the end of the nineteenth century up till today. The focus, though, is not primarily historical, but doctrinal and ecumenical. We show that looking at this doctrine from both theological traditions helps in establishing crucial issues. It equally makes possible the cross-fertilization of theological development. Finally, we hope that it can help to foster ecumenical rapprochement precisely in an area where Protestants and Catholics have long been divided – their doctrine of Scripture. “By inerrancy is understood”, according to the Handbook of Catholic Theology, “the freedom from error of Scripture”1. Evangelical theologian Stephen Holmes states that “[i]nerrancy at its most basic is merely the confession that the Bible is without factual error in those things it affirms”2. These brief definitions suffice to start our study. Discussions about inerrancy take a central place in evangelicals’ doctrine of Scripture. Discussion of the topic, however, is not or should not be limited to evangelicals. Pope Benedict XVI stated in the postsynodal apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini: Certainly theological reflection has always considered inspiration and truth as two key concepts for an ecclesial hermeneutic of the sacred Scriptures. Nonetheless, one must acknowledge the need today for a fuller and more adequate study of these realities, in order better to respond to the need to interpret the sacred texts in accordance with their nature. Here I would express my fervent hope that research in this field will progress and bear fruit both for biblical science and for the spiritual life of the faithful3.

1. W. BEINERT, Inerrancy, in ID. – F. SCHÜSSLER FIORENZA (eds.), Handbook of Catholic Theology, New York, Herder & Herder, 1995, 386-387, p. 386. 2. S.R. HOLMES, Evangelical Doctrines of Scripture in Transatlantic Perspective, in Evangelical Quarterly 81 (2009) 38-63, p. 41. 3. BENEDICT XVI, Verbum Domini 19 (post-synodal apostolic exhortation), 2010.

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The former Pope thus expresses the need for more theological reflection on issues concerning the truth of Scripture. As we will see, such discussion is both unavoidable and necessary within evangelicalism. One could question that the issue is really that important for a Roman Catholic theology of Scripture. Whereas the last decades have seen a flood of publications on inerrancy from intra-evangelical perspectives, there has rather been a dearth on the Roman Catholic side. It looks as if the topic came to a standstill with Vatican II. Before and up to the Council, the issue was regularly discussed, but the number of publications in the last decade that deal directly with the topic are very limited indeed. One recent Roman Catholic interpreter calls biblical inerrancy nevertheless “one of the watershed issues of our time”4. This quote is a little surprising, if the issue has not been discussed widely in the last decades. Perhaps this conservative Catholic voice from North America shows rather that issues pertaining to inerrancy are a North American problem. For amongst evangelicals, it is especially in the United States that inerrancy is a disputed topic. It is much less so elsewhere. In any case, we have the invitation from Pope Emeritus Benedict to study the issue more thoroughly. Moreover, it will become clear that touching upon the issue of the inerrancy of Scriptures, we are dealing with the importance of the Scriptures for the inner life of faith and for Church and tradition. It is our conviction that in further research on the truth of Scripture Catholics can learn from evangelical perspectives and evangelicals can learn from Catholic perspectives. In that sense, this article hopes to offer a small contribution to an ecumenically-oriented reflection on the renewal and reform of the Church. Our approach is broadly ecumenical in that we are looking at developments in both traditions – evangelical and Roman Catholic – with reference to their particularity and preferred sources. Although the development of theological thought on the topic seems to have followed separate tracks in the last decades, it will be clear that in both traditions that development is as much stimulated by the context/world as it is by

4. S.W. HAHN, For the Sake of Our Salvation: The Truth and Humility of God’s Word, in Letter and Spirit: A Journal of Catholic Biblical Theology 6 (2010) 21-46, p. 33. “No one conversant in twentieth-century theology doubts that biblical inerrancy is one of the watershed issues of our time. Here the pressures have been greatest to leave behind, or at least significantly modify, the traditional understanding of Scripture’s total immunity from error in favor of a new paradigm that allows factual inaccuracies to stand alongside the truths enshrined in its sacred pages”.

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internal resources. The last decade or so has also seen a greater interaction between the two traditions on this topic. In what follows we will define the term “evangelical”. Then follow highlights of the historical development of inerrancy in evangelical and Catholic sources. We continue with sketching some dogmatic theological observations of similarities and differences in the respective theologies of Scripture, inspiration and inerrancy. We conclude with a couple of suggestions for a way forward. II. EVANGELICALISM: REFORM & REACTIONARY MOVEMENT Defining evangelicalism is a notoriously difficult but very important task for our purposes. The word “evangelical” is certainly not univocal and depending on the context it can be tainted with unnecessary connotations or outright wrong understandings. For people (including theologians) unfamiliar with the evangelical5 movement, their understanding may largely be influenced by how the European press uses the term in the context of American politics6. Whilst acknowledge that the evangelical movement in the United States has some serious soul-searching to do with respect to its political alliances, the lumping together of fundamentalism and evangelicalism is a serious error. Understanding the evangelical movement predominantly in political terms is another misunderstanding partly due to theological ignorance of evangelicalism’s roots and characteristics. Due to these misunderstanding, many evangelicals in the United States and worldwide, are questioning if they should continue to self-identify as evangelicals. Although it is possible that in the near future evangelicals will have to give up the term, for the purpose of this article we will continue to use the term and try to briefly sketch what one needs to know for a better understanding. Evangelicalism is a global, theological, ecclesial and personal reform and renewal movement. Some would define evangelicalism doctrinally by adherence to certain key doctrines characteristic of orthodox Protestantism, others define it historically as the heir of renewal movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, still others more simply as

5. Although in German evangelisch is practical synonym for Lutheran, this is not what is meant when “evangelical” is used in this article. 6. Evangelicals are used as short shrift for “white fundamentalists who voted Trump to power”. The connotation of bigotry is never far away.

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a tradition within Protestant Christianity7. There is truth in all of these characterizations. Daniel Treier argues that “Evangelicals understand themselves as confessionally orthodox Protestants oriented to piety that is personal”8. The contemporary Protestant-evangelical tradition is a movement that is rooted in three or four layers of Protestantism9. The oldest layer is of course that of the Reformation itself, beginning in the sixteenth century. If Protestantism can be summarily described by the five solae (sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria), evangelicalism can be considered as firmly rooted in Protestantism. Evangelicalism as heir to Protestantism, is a reaction against perceived corruption of the gospel in the late Medieval Catholic Church. A second constitutive movement for evangelicalism is Pietism. This movement is connected with the Lutheran pastor Philipp Jacob Spener who published in 1675 his manifesto Pia Desideria (the piety which we desire). This work called for a renewal of the inner spiritual life, a more active participation of the laity in daily faith, a reduced focus on Church structures, and a wider use of the Bible by everyone in the Church10. Evangelicalism as heir of Pietism, then, is a reaction against the perceived dead orthodoxy of the Protestant Church in the seventeenth century. The third and most direct basis of the evangelical movement can be traced to Britain and the United States, beginning in the period 17351765. That period was marked by a series of “revivals” – intense periods of extraordinary response to gospel proclamation, complemented by an unusual dedication to pious living. Famous revival preachers of that era were George Whitefield, Charles and John Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards. Central in their preaching was the necessity of conversion (regeneration) and a life of active sanctification11. In Britain, these revivals

7. See the discussion in S.V. MONSMA, What Is an Evangelical? And Does It Matter?, in Christian Scholar’s Review 46 (2017) 323-340, p. 323. 8. D.J. TREIER, Scripture and Hermeneutics, in T. LARSEN – D.J. TREIER (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007, 35-49, p. 35. 9. This section on the history of evangelicalism is adapted from W. BIESBROUCK, Wrestling with Angels: Catholic and Evangelical Tradition-Specific Approaches to Theology of Religions, unpublished PhD Diss. KU Leuven, 2013, pp. 56-57. Also from MONSMA, What Is an Evangelical (n. 7), pp. 335-336. 10. M.A. NOLL, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys (A History of Evangelicalism), Leicester, IVP, 2004, p. 15. 11. Ibid., pp. 12-13, 15.

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“were known as the ‘Evangelical Revival’, while in the American colonies they were called the ‘Great Awakening’”12. Evangelicalism as heir of revivalism is a reaction against the “dry, sterile formalism”13 of mainline Protestant Churches. The fourth, and most recent layer in the history of evangelicalism can be traced to the “latter decades of the 19th century and early decades of the 20th. (…) [The] new challenge” for Protestant Christianity “appeared in the form of biblical higher criticism and findings of modern science that seemed to undermine the teachings of historic Christianity”14. Evangelicalism as heir of this movement is a reaction against liberal Protestantism so that it “reemphasized and defended the traditional, orthodox Protestant Christian teachings”15 based on the secure indubitable foundation that is Scripture. From the eighteenth century onwards, this movement spread to all continents. It should be remarked that it is not, in the first place, a church denomination, but a movement in (predominantly) Protestant Churches characterized by interdenominational cooperation. In the nineteenth century, this cooperation found expression especially in the establishment of Bible Societies for the translation, publication and dissemination of the Bible. Starting at the end of the nineteenth century, it also became evident in the establishment of Evangelical Alliances16. For our purposes, it is important to understand that evangelicalism is a reactionary movement across denominations, combining orthodox Protestant and historic Christian doctrinal allegiance with personal piety and missionary zeal. The Bible obtains the preeminent role both in doctrine and in spirituality. We will see that the doctrine of Scripture as inerrant, became the most defining characteristic of (American17) evangelicalism at the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century.

12. Ibid., p. 15. 13. MONSMA, What Is an Evangelical (n. 7), p. 335. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. D.W. BEBBINGTON, The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody (A History of Evangelicalism), Leicester, IVP, 2005, p. 61. 17. The focus on American evangelicalism is not to deny that there are other strands in evangelicalism with quite different characteristics. In the European context British or Dutch evangelicalism are a case in point, each with its own history and theology. Nevertheless, the influence of the American situation is hard to overestimate, especially in contexts where the evangelical movement is young and small.

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III. INERRANCY IN MODERN HISTORY: DEVELOPMENTS IN EVANGELICAL AND CATHOLIC THEOLOGY 1. Roman Catholic Theology Prior to Vatican II The first formal ecclesial affirmation of inerrancy is found in 1870 in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith Dei Filius (chapter 2) of the First Vatican Council where we are told that the Scriptures contain revelation without error (revelationem sine errore contineant)18. Raymond Collins has shown how developments in textual criticism and historical criticism in the nineteenth century led to a defence of the traditional doctrine of inspiration by the magisterium19. Before the end of the century, Pope Leo XIII reacted to Alfred Loisy’s writings in his periodical L’Enseignement biblique (1892)20, with the Encyclical Providentissimus Deus – On the Study of the Holy Scripture (1893): It is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred21.

One should also remark that the encyclical equally disallows limiting inspiration to matters of faith and morals22. The encyclical Spiritus Paraclitus (1920) by Benedict XV repeats much of Leo’s encyclical, especially concerning the inerrancy of Scripture, to the effect of making historical critical research of the Bible hardly possible. According to Benedict XV, there can be no sense of a limited inerrancy – that is, limited to faith and morals so that the results of “profane sciences” cannot interfere with the interpretation of Scripture. Benedict XV concurs with Leo XIII by repeating:

18. P. SCHAFF (ed.), The Greek and Latin Creeds, with Translations (Bibliotheca Symbolica Ecclesiae Universalis: The Creeds of Christendom), 3, 2, New York, Harper and Brothers, 1919, p. 242. See HOLMES, Evangelical Doctrines of Scripture (n. 2), p. 41, n. 17. 19. R.F. COLLINS, Inspiration, in R.E. BROWN – J.A. FITZMYER – R.E. MURPHY (eds.), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1990, 10231033, p. 1029. 20. Published as A. LOISY, Histoire critique du texte et des versions de la Bible, Amiens, Rousseau-Leroy, 1892. 21. LEO XIII, Providentissimus Deus 20; http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/ encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18111893_providentissimus-deus.html. 22. H. SASSE, Rome and the Inspiration of Scripture, in The Reformed Theological Review 22/2 (1963) 33-45, p. 36. COLLINS, Inspiration (n. 19), p. 1029.

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It would be wholly impious to limit inspiration to certain portions only of Scripture or to concede that the sacred authors themselves could have erred23.

With the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943) Pius XII opens up the field of biblical studies to the historical-critical method. As such it is of immense importance for modern Roman Catholic biblical studies. As regards the doctrine of Scripture, the encyclical reaffirms the traditional doctrines of the inspiration and the inerrancy of the Bible, but it now makes an attempt to overcome the deadlock concerning the claim for absolute inerrancy in matters where the established historical facts seem to contradict the Bible24. It should be noted, however, that Divino Afflante Spiritu repeats at its very outset the doctrine of inerrancy, expressly negating that inerrancy can be limited to faith and morals. It even calls this a solemn definition of Catholic Doctrine25. On the eve of Vatican II, the Louvain biblical scholar Joseph Coppens could write concerning inerrancy that genre analysis takes an important role in qualifying inerrancy. Moreover, Coppens is able to write that Scripture does not provide us with history full stop, not even sacred history, but above all a religious interpretation of history26.

23. BENEDICT XV, Spiritus Paraclitus 21; http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xv/en/ encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xv_enc_15091920_spiritus-paraclitus.html. These wordings remind H. SASSE (Rome [n. 22], p. 40) of the Princetonian inerrantists: “These are touching words [of, amongst others, Spiritus Paraclitus 19; 26]. They could have been written and have virtually been written during those years at Princeton when the FundamentalistModernist controversy raged through the Protestant churches of America with the same passion which we found in the church of Pius X”. 24. SASSE, Rome (n. 22), p. 41. 25. Divino Afflante Spiritu 1: “When, subsequently, some Catholic writers, in spite of this solemn definition of Catholic doctrine, by which such divine authority is claimed for the ‘entire books with all their parts’ as to secure freedom from any error whatsoever, ventured to restrict the truth of Sacred Scripture solely to matters of faith and morals and to regard other matters, whether in the domain of physical science or history, as ‘obiter dicta’ and – as they contended – in no wise connected with faith, …Leo XIII … justly and rightly condemned these errors…”; http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/ documents/hf_p-xii_enc_30091943_divino-afflante-spiritu.html. 26. J. COPPENS, Comment mieux concevoir et énoncer l’inspiration et l’inerrance des Saintes Écritures? (Analecta Lovaniensia Biblica et Orientalia, IV/14), Louvain, Publications Universitaires; Bruges – Paris, Desclée De Brouwer, 1964, 933-947, pp. 942-943. See also J. COPPENS, L’inspiration et l’inerrance bibliques (Analecta Lovaniensia Biblica et Orientalia, III/5), Louvain, Publications Universitaires; Bruges – Paris, Desclée De Brouwer, 1957, pp. 36-57. We should remark, however, that genre analysis does not suffice for Coppens. Following N. Lohfink, he has recourse to the theory of the sensus plenior and to typology to recover the intention of the divine author.

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It is evident that immediately before and during the Council, a lot of theological activity was taking place on the doctrine of Scripture, its inspiration and inerrancy. The preparation of what eventually will become Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution on the Word of God, Dei Verbum, is perhaps no stranger to this fact. Some of the finest Catholic exegetes and dogmaticians produce their reflections on the issues in that period: Pierre Benoit, Joseph Coppens, Norbert Lohfink, Karl Rahner, Joseph Ratzinger, Luis Alonso-Schökel27. 2. Evangelical Theology As for Catholics, so for evangelicals: discussions about inerrancy in the latter part of the nineteenth century are reactions to authors who are part of the tradition but whose writings are perceived to be threatening orthodoxy. The Catholic magisterium reacted against the threats of modernism, evangelicals reacted against what they perceived as threats of Protestant theological liberalism. The evangelical inerrancy debate in the modern era can be said to have started in 1881 with the publications in the Presbyterian Review of two articles: the first one, on inspiration, by Archibald Hodge and Benjamin Warfield and the reaction in the following issue of the journal by theologian and biblical scholar Charles A. Briggs28. According to Briggs, the autographs of Scripture were errant, even if inspired. Briggs had studied in Berlin and was fully conversant with the critical theories of Julius Wellhausen and others. The views of Briggs were disputed and as an ordained Presbyterian, he came under investigation of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in

27. P. BENOIT, Révélation et Inspiration, in Revue Biblique 70 (1963) 321-370; COPPENS, Comment mieux concevoir (n. 26); N. LOHFINK, Das Siegeslied am Schilfmeer: Christliche Auseinandersetzungen mit dem Alten Testament, Frankfurt a.M., Knecht, 1965, pp. 44-80: “Die Irrtumslosigkeit”; K. RAHNER, Über die Schriftinspiration (Quaestiones Disputatae, 1), Freiburg i.Br., Herder, 1958; L. ALONSO SCHÖKEL, Dove va l’esegesi cattolica?, in La Civiltà Cattolica 111 (1960) 449-460; J. RATZINGER, OffenbarungSchrift-Überlieferung, in Trierer Theologische Zeitschrift 67 (1958) 13-27; L. ALONSO SCHÖKEL, The Inspired Word: Scripture in the Light of Language and Literature, New York, Herder and Herder, 1965. For the discussion of inerrancy in the preparatory phase of Dei Verbum, see the detailed and instructive discussion in K. SCHELKENS, Catholic Theology of Revelation on the Eve of Vatican II: A Redaction History of the Schema De fontibus revelationis (1960-1962) (Brill’s Series in Church History, 41), Leiden, Brill, 2010, pp. 111-156. 28. A.A. HODGE – B.B. WARFIELD, Inspiration, in Presbyterian Review (1881), no. 6 (April), 225-260. C.A. BRIGGS, Critical Theories of the Sacred Scriptures in Relation to Their Inspiration, ibid. (1881), no. 7 (July), 550-579.

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the US, leading eventually in 1893 to him being defrocked. Jason Sexton marks this as “the climax in the first wave of the inerrancy debate”29. According to Andrew McGowan, the intent of the 1881 article by Warfield and Hodge “is to make it clear that the superintendence of God in Scripture guarantees the errorless infallibility of all scriptural affirmations”30. Contrary to the claims of Briggs, Hodge and Warfield argued that “the original manuscripts of the biblical books as penned by the authors, were entirely without error”31. This position, further developed through Warfield’s later writings, “became a distinguishing mark of the theological position held by those who taught at Princeton Theological Seminary”32. Stephen Holmes adds that Warfield’s “great legacy was the elevation of plenary verbal inspiration resulting in inerrancy to the primary position in the doctrine of Scripture”33. According to Holmes, this is a new position in the history of theology34. A second milestone in the evangelical inerrancy debate is linked with the publication of 90 essays, in twelve volumes, between 1910 and 1915 focused on defending “the fundamentals of the faith”. One of the “fundamentals” to be defended was the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible35. The foreword to volume 4 states that it would be sent – for free – “to about 250.000 pastors, evangelists, missionaries, theological professors, …”. The impact of these writings can thus hardly be overestimated. It left an indissoluble impression on the self-understanding of (American) evangelicalism, confirming its identity as a reactionary movement affirming classic Protestant Christian dogma against liberal Protestantism. A third milestone in the evangelical inerrancy debate is undoubtedly the establishment in 1949 of the Evangelical Theological Society in the USA. In the description of the historical background to the records of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) the centrality of inerrancy to (American) evangelical self-understanding is made evident:

29. J.S. SEXTON, How Far beyond Chicago? Assessing Recent Attempts to Reframe the Inerrancy Debate, in Themelios 34 (2009) 26-48, pp. 28-29. 30. A.T.B. MCGOWAN, The Divine Spiration of Scripture: Challenging Evangelical Perspectives, Nottingham, Apollos, 2007, p. 81. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., p. 86. 33. HOLMES, Evangelical Doctrines of Scripture (n. 2), p. 42. 34. Ibid. 35. The Fundamentals: A Testimony to Truth, I-XII, Chicago, IL, Testimony Publishing Company, 1910-1915. In 1917, they were republished in 4 volumes by the Bible Institute Los Angeles. See https://www.theopedia.com/the-fundamentals (accessed 21 May 2018). In the new 4 volume publication, Volume 1 and most of Volume 2 are concerned with the authority of the Bible and a defence of inerrancy against “higher criticism”.

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The decision was made to form a society composed of independent individuals of conservative, Evangelical conviction with one common denominator: scholarship based on the concept of biblical inerrancy. These individuals were not required to be affiliated with schools and seminaries and were not to be limited to specific denominational or theological traditions. For these reasons, the creedal statement was limited to one sentence: “The Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety is the word of God written, and therefore inerrant in the autographs”36.

Every member must subscribe in writing annually to the Doctrinal Basis. As will be seen, the fact that inerrancy was chosen as the one and only defining doctrine37 will enshrine conflict and confusion in the development of the ETS. 3. Roman Catholic Theology: Vatican II and Beyond There are three magisterial documents that are of paramount importance with respect to the Bible, its interpretation and theology of revelation since Vatican II. These are the dogmatic constitution on divine revelation, Dei Verbum, of the Second Vatican Council, the document by the Pontifical Biblical Commission On the Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (1993), and the post-synodal apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini (2010). The most important is undoubtedly Dei Verbum. One must understand, however, that DV has an important prehistory, both in the development of the preparatory Schema De Fontibus and in the different drafts that were made during the Council38. Inerrancy figured largely in these discussions even though it is only in DV 11 that the topic of inerrancy is mentioned:

36. http://www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/GUIDES/243.htm (accessed 21 May 2018). 37. In 1990 a Trinitarian formula was added to the doctrinal basis: “God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each an uncreated person, one in essence, equal in power and glory”. The doctrinal basis of the ETS-USA can be contrasted with the basis of faith of the Fellowship of European Evangelical Theologians, which has eight articles, the second of which is “The divine inspiration of Holy Scripture and its consequent entire trustworthiness and supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct”. http://www. paternosterperiodicals.co.uk/european-journal-of-theology/feet-membership-form (accessed 21 May 2018). Stephen Holmes equally remarks the following: “I observe, however, that the language of ‘inerrancy’ is almost wholly absent from the confessional documents of British Evangelicalism over the same period […]. It seems to me surprising that so central a claim on one side of the Atlantic should be virtually unknown, or if known unaccepted, on the other”. HOLMES, Evangelical Doctrines of Scripture (n. 2), p. 39. 38. An instructive and exhaustive discussion of the redaction history of the preparatory schema can be found in SCHELKENS, Catholic Theology of Revelation (n. 27).

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Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation39.

Hardly anything was written by Catholics on inerrancy between the 1980s and 2010. Collins remarks in 1990 that this is partly due to “a more adequate understanding of the nature of the Scriptures” and partly to “conciliar directive”40. Harrison proves the dearth of publications by stating that “according to the standard international bibliography of Christian scholarship, Louvain University’s Elenchus Bibliographicus, not one publication by a Catholic writer has mentioned either the truth or inerrancy of Scripture in its title since 1995, and only three have done so since 1983”41. This is surprising since before, during, and after Vatican II, the issue was hotly debated. One could assume, with Collins, that Dei Verbum settled the matter. However, although it seems to have laid the discussion to rest, there are two widely diverging (actually opposing) conclusions drawn from DV 11. Unfortunately, this sentence has received almost opposite interpretations after the Council. Some argue that the Council in effect limited inerrancy to those truths concerning our salvation. Ronald Witherup proffers as one of his summary statements of DV that the “doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture is affirmed but no exact theory of how it operates is adopted; the Scriptures are without error with regard to the necessary teaching for salvation”42. Witherup effectively argues for a kind of “restricted inerrancy”, a position that allegedly is favored by a large number of Roman Catholic theologians. One of the foremost Catholic biblical scholars, Raymond Brown, shares this interpretation: “Everything in Scripture is inerrant to the extent to which it confirms to the salvific purpose of God”43.

39. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_ const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html. 40. COLLINS, Inspiration (n. 19), p. 1030. 41. B.W. HARRISON, Restricted Inerrancy and the “Hermeneutic of Discontinuity”, in Letter and Spirit: A Journal of Catholic Biblical Theology 6 (2010) 225-247, p. 225. 42. R.D. WITHERUP, The Word of God at Vatican II: Exploring Dei Verbum, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2014, p. 58. See also his Scripture: Dei Verbum, Rediscovering Vatican II, New York, Paulist, 2006. 43. R.E. BROWN, The Critical Meaning of the Bible, New York, Paulist, 1981, pp. 18-19. He “suggests that the ambiguity came from a conscious ‘juxtaposition of more conservative older formulations with more open recent formulations’”.

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Others vehemently claim that the Council is clearly upholding the previous magisterial pronouncements on the issue, based on a different grammatical reading of the text, and, in support of this, the fact that Dei Verbum itself suggests as much by choosing to cite two modern magisterial affirmations of “the absolute inerrancy of Scripture” in the first footnote to the teaching on inspiration. The Synod of Bishops of 2008 laid these contrasting opinions bare44. These led to the 2010 post-synodal apostolic exhortation, inviting further theological reflection. The same year saw the publication of several works by Roman Catholic theologians45. First and foremost of these publications is Denis Farkasfalvy’s monograph on Inspiration & Interpretation46. Equally focused, but with a lot of overlap between articles, is volume 6 of Letter and Spirit, an issue being completely devoted to the controversy47. Both Farkasfalvy and Letter and Spirit take a “conservative” position on the interpretation of DV 11. Farkasfalvy is lamenting the confusing grammar of DV 11 which “opened the possibility for ambiguous translations and interpretations. Consequently, in several of its translations, Dei Verbum misleadingly appears to teach that inerrancy covers only those statements which regard our salvation. One may say that this misinterpretation caught on early in the reception of the Council, and is being propagated even by recognized and high-quality scholars”48. 44. The 2008 Synod of Bishops had as its theme “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church”. A working document (Instrumentum Laboris) with the same title was made available in May 2008, well before the October Synod. The document is available online at: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/index.htm. One passage discussing inerrancy stirred commotion: on II.A.15. c. the texts states “In summary, the following can be said with certainty: […] with regards to what might be inspired in the many parts of Sacred Scripture, inerrancy applies only to ‘that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation’ (DV 11)” (my italics). The word “only” does not appear in the original text of DV 11 and seems to contradict the meaning of DV. When this was raised during the Synod, it is said that heated discussions followed. For a discussion of this gloss and what happened at the Synod, see M.M. WALDSTEIN, Analogia Verbi: The Truth of Scripture in Rudolf Bultmann and Raymond Brown, in Letter and Spirit: A Journal of Catholic Biblical Theology 6 (2010) 93-140, p. 96. It does show, however, that a limited inerrancy view was mainstream enough to appear in the Instrumentum Laboris. 45. The following years, with the fiftieth anniversary of Vatican II, many new works evaluating the Council were published, including discussions of DV, sometimes touching on the issue of inerrancy. 46. D. FARKASFALVY, Inspiration and Interpretation: A Theological Introduction to Sacred Scripture, Washington, DC, Catholic University of America Press, 2010. 47. Letter and Spirit: A Journal of Catholic Biblical Theology 6 (2010): “For the Sake of Our Salvation: The Truth and Humility of God’s Word”. 48. FARKASFALVY, Inspiration (n. 46), p. 187.

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Raymond Brown, for one, considers the ambiguity of DV 11 to be a result “that stems from the compromise nature of Dei Verbum”49. He finds support for this interpretation in discussions during the Council, as evidenced by the commentary on DV by Alois Grillmeier50. It is partly because of these contradictory readings of DV 11 that Benedict XVI in Verbum Domini urged for further theological research on the topic. If Brown could write that he, with many others, was convinced “that at Vatican II the Catholic Church ‘turned the corner’ in the inerrancy question”51, it looks that the most recent discussions favor a more conservative understanding in greater continuity with the pre-Vatican II magisterial documents52. 4. Evangelicals and the Battle for the Bible: Inerrancy, a Paradigm in Crisis? Inerrancy is serious business in American evangelicalism. In 1978, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI) was drafted. It is a document expositing the meaning of inerrancy while duly recognizing the impact of the historical situatedness and the literary genres of the Bible for its interpretation and understanding of inspiration and inerrancy. This document of some ten pages is formally referred to by the ETS-USA as the way to understand what it means by inerrancy53. According to Roger Olson, the introduction of this statement led to

49. BROWN, The Critical Meaning of the Bible (n. 43), p. 18. 50. Ibid., pp. 18-19, especially n. 41 and n. 42. Brown refers to A. GRILLMEIER, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. Chapter III: The Divine Inspiration and the Interpretation of Sacred Scripture, in H. VORGRIMLER (ed.), Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, vol. 3, New York, Herder and Herder; London, Burns & Oates, 1969, 199-246. For a discussion of Brown’s understanding of the truth of Scripture, see WALDSTEIN, Analogia Verbi (n. 44). 51. BROWN, The Critical Meaning of the Bible (n. 43), p. 18. 52. See, however, now also S.W. FLYNN, The Hope of Catholic Biblical Interpretation: Progress and Gaps in the Manifestation of Scripture since Vatican II, in New Blackfriars 96 (2015) 576-590. 53. Under “membership requirements”, the ETS states the following: “For the purpose of advising members regarding the intent and meaning of the reference to biblical inerrancy in the ETS Doctrinal Basis, the Society refers members to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978). The case for biblical inerrancy rests on the absolute trustworthiness of God and Scripture’s testimony to itself. A proper understanding of inerrancy takes into account the language, genres, and intent of Scripture. We reject approaches to Scripture that deny that biblical truth claims are grounded in reality”; http://www.etsjets. org/about/membership_requirements (accessed 21 May 2018).

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divisions among evangelicals and the resignation of several faculty members of evangelical colleges and schools54. It is on the basis of the CSBI-document that Robert H. Gundry was ousted from the ETS in 198355. His commentary on the Gospel of Matthew was considered to be in conflict with inerrancy. Gundry argued that Matthew’s theological account “mixes the historical with the unhistorical to make a theological point”56. Gundry, ironically, continued (and continues) to subscribe to ETS’s doctrinal basis of inerrancy. Although the CSBI was set up to clarify inerrancy, the discussions within the ETS have never abated since its publication, more often than not producing more heat than light. Perhaps, the Chicago statement that was supposed to clarify matters is part of the problem. In applying Kuhn’s theory of paradigms in science to the issue of inerrancy among evangelical theologians, Carlos Bovell convincingly argues that inerrancy is a theory in crisis57. The unending spate of works by evangelicals on the issue of inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility is evidence of this58. 54. R.E. OLSON, The Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology (The Westminster Handbooks to Christian Theology), Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox, 2004, p. 324. 55. This case is discussed in C.D. ALLERT, A High View of Scripture? The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon (Evangelical Ressourcement. Ancient Sources for the Church’s Future), Grand Rapids, MI, Baker Academic, 2007, pp. 165-171. 56. Ibid., p. 165. 57. C.R. BOVELL, Inerrancy, a Paradigm in Crisis, in ID. (ed.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Authority of Scripture: Historical, Biblical, and Theoretical Perspectives, Eugene, OR, Pickwick, 2011, 91-106. 58. S.J. GRENZ, Revisioning Evangelical Theology: A Fresh Agenda for the 21st Century, Downers Grove, IL, IVP, 1993; BOVELL (ed.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Authority of Scripture (n. 57); D.H. WILLIAMS (ed.), Tradition, Scripture, and Interpretation: A Sourcebook of the Ancient Church (Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for the Church’s Future), Grand Rapids, MI, Baker Academic, 2006; P. ENNS, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, Grand Rapids, MI, Baker Academic, 2005; C. SMITH, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture, Grand Rapids, MI, Brazos, 2012; S. MCKNIGHT, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible, Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 2008; K. SPARKS, God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship, Grand Rapids, MI, Baker Academic, 2008; R. BAUCKHAM, Scripture and Authority Today, Cambridge, Grove Books, 1999; I.H. MARSHALL, Biblical Inspiration (Biblical and Theological Classics Library, 6), Carlisle, Paternoster, 1995 (1982); ID., Beyond the Bible: Moving from Scripture to Theology, Grand Rapids, MI, Baker Academic; Milton Keynes, Paternoster, 2004; N.T. WRIGHT, Scripture and the Authority of God, London, SPCK, 2005; MCGOWAN, Divine Spiration (n. 30); V.-M. KÄRKKÄINEN, Trinity and Revelation (A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World), Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 2014; A. YONG, Spirit-Word-Community: Theological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective (New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies), Burlington, VT – Aldershot, Ashgate, 2002 (repr. Eugene, OR, Wipf & Stock, 2006).

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Several factors are germane to this crisis. The first is the problematic relation with historical criticism within evangelicalism. The authors questioning inerrancy are convinced of the benefits of historical criticism and see less ideological problems with it than more strict inerrantists. A second impetus to reconsider inerrancy are the texts of violence in Scripture, especially those in the Old Testament where God orders Israel to commit genocide. A third reason concerns the problem of defining inerrancy. As McGowan points out, “if it took the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy around twelve pages to define and explain their use of the word ‘inerrancy’ in the famous Chicago Statement, then surely there must be a better word we could use”59. Thus, part of the problem of defining inerrancy is that it must be seriously qualified in order not to be misunderstood. It seems to suffer the “death of a thousand qualifications”60. Looking at it in terms of philosophy of science, we could say that epicycles are created in order for the theory to be maintained. A first epicycle to ‘save’ biblical inerrancy is to state that only the ‘autographs’ are inerrant61. A second is the claim that scripture is only inerrant in what it affirms; a third is that inerrancy does not demand the inerrancy of the non-inspired sources used by the biblical writers. Another epicycle consists in stating that textual updatings are also inspired62.

A more foundational problem with the doctrine of inerrancy, however, is that “Truth is largely viewed in propositional terms and theological method is conceived of in scientific terms”63. This is one of the issues that will be discussed in the following section. IV. DOGMATIC DISCUSSION OF THE MEANING

OF INERRANCY

A possible embarrassment with respect to the discussion about inerrancy is worth mentioning here. Perhaps an open discussion of the doctrine is complicated in academic settings, because we are also dealing 59. MCGOWAN, Divine Spiration (n. 30), p. 106. 60. OLSON, Evangelical Theology (n. 54), p. 324. 61. The problem with this solution is of course that the autographa are lost to us. If we don’t have inerrant copies, yet God is able to come to his purposes with the errant copies, why would one need inerrant autographs? 62. BIESBROUCK, Wrestling with Angels (n. 9), p. 114, n. 511. For this last epicycle, see M.A. GRISANTI, Inspiration, Inerrancy, and the OT Canon: The Place of Textual Updating in an Inerrant View of Scripture, in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 44 (2001) 577-598. For a critique and more balanced evangelical approach of Scripture, see MCGOWAN, Divine Spiration (n. 30). Also pertinent is the analysis in BOVELL, Paradigm in Crisis (n. 57). 63. MCGOWAN, Divine Spiration (n. 30), p. 116.

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with issues pertaining to faith, to what we believe. The consequence of this finding is that discussions of inerrancy must be held at the interface of Academia and Ecclesia. We propose that the lack of academic theological discussion across ecclesial traditions is linked to this issue64. Following George Lindbeck in his suggestion that doctrine functions as the grammar of religion, we should ask what the grammar of the doctrine of inerrancy consists of, what is it protecting and what does it enable us to say65? Denis Farkasfalvy succinctly states that “‘If God is the author of the Bible, it must not contain anything unworthy of him’. This type of statement is probably the oldest formulation of the principle of ‘inerrancy’ and can be found with frequency in the writings of the anti-Gnostic Church Fathers of the second and third centuries”66. It is our conviction that the doctrine of inerrancy should basically be stated positively, viz., inerrancy means that Scripture teaches the truth. Alternatively: Scripture does not mislead us, but guides us in the t/Truth. Goheen and Williams point out that “we have so stressed certain attributes of Scripture – divine authority, inspiration, infallibility – that often they have been cut loose from the purpose of Scripture. What the Bible is becomes unyoked from what the Bible does”67. Further on they propose that, “Yes, we can trust the Bible in life and death because it is God’s Word and tells the truth. It speaks with divine authority. It does not err in its purpose to lead us to salvation in Christ”68. A dogmatic discussion of the meaning of inerrancy leads us to a number of unresolved theological issues: (1) the question of the propositional content of revelation and of defining truth propositionally, (2) the relation of Scripture and revelation, and more particularly of the Word of God incarnate and the Bible as Word of God, (3) the relation of inerrancy to authority, with authority of Scripture for evangelicals, and the interpretation and reception of the Second Vatican Council for Roman Catholics, (4) the sufficiency of Scripture, and its relation to tradition, (5) the usefulness of the incarnational analogy. 64. Moreover, is it because we can find no funding from our secular authorities for these issues, that they remain underdeveloped? 65. G.A. LINDBECK, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (with a New Introduction by Bruce D. Marshall and a New Afterword by the Author), 25th anniversary ed., Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, 2009 (original ed. 1984). 66. FARKASFALVY, Inspiration (n. 46), p. 230. 67. M.W. GOHEEN – M.D. WILLIAMS, Doctrine of Scripture and Theological Interpretation, in C.G. BARTHOLOMEW – H.A. THOMAS (eds.), A Manifesto for Theological Interpretation, Grand Rapids, MI, Baker Academic, 2016, 48-71, p. 49 (italics original). 68. Ibid., p. 65.

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1. The Propositional Content of Revelation/Defining Truth Propositionally In tracing the modern history of the doctrine of inerrancy, we have seen that, both in Roman Catholic and in evangelical theology, inerrancy came to the foreground in the second half of the nineteenth century when the assured convictions of the Christian faith were beginning to be seriously questioned by the findings of other sciences. As Christian theology tried to defend itself, it assumed the philosophical presuppositions of its interlocutors. The natural sciences were establishing themselves as factual, objective and value-free; their results are verifiable. Theologians operating in that period were challenged to conform to these standards of the scientific enterprise. This is easily shown for evangelical notions of inerrancy, although the Roman Catholic reaction to the modernist crisis shows similar traits69. For evangelical scholars working with Scripture as the source for their “science”, the natural inclination was to establish Scripture as the indubitable foundation upon which the whole theological edifice could be constructed. The doctrine of inerrancy functioned as the cornerstone of Christian apologetics. Carl F.H. Henry70 famously claimed that “The truth-content of theology can be investigated – as can that of astronomy and botany and geology”71. Donald Bloesch describes the theological method of both Benjamin Warfield and Carl F. Henry as “rationalist”. Their “approach rests on the premise that faith is congruous with reason. A thoroughgoing rationalism is presupposed in credo quia intelligo (I believe because I understand)”72. Jeffery Oldfield has shown that as the scientific enterprise as a whole functioned within a correspondence theory of truth, so did also these 69. Farkasfalvy writes that “when the Church and its theologians began dealing with biblical inerrancy in response to rationalist attacks on the Bible, they could not help taking from their opponents a number of their suppositions. Rather than defining inerrancy from the point of view of Christian doctrine, they found themselves defending a concept of inerrancy in terms which the rationalists assumed, as a divine guarantee of truth, covering each and every sentence of the Bible. It was typical for a rationalistic reading of the Bible to regard the sacred text as nothing but propositional statements […]”. FARKASFALVY, Inspiration (n. 46), p. 222. 70. Where Benjamin Warfield stood at the start of the inerrancy movement at the turn of the twentieth century, Henry was instrumental in starting the neo-evangelical movement in the middle of the century. He was one of the founders of the Evangelical Theological Society in the USA and as a champion of inerrancy, one of the original signers of the CSBI. He was considered as the “dean” of (American) evangelical theologians. 71. C.F.H. HENRY, God, Revelation and Authority, vol. 1, Wheaton, IL, Crossway Books, 1999, p. 229. 72. D.G. BLOESCH, Holy Scripture: Revelation, Inspiration & Interpretation, Downers Grove, IL, InterVarsity Press, 1994, p. 80.

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two major evangelical defenders of the doctrine of inerrancy. Oldfield established “that the understanding of truth promoted by the two theologians resemble certain Enlightenment concerns to do with epistemological certainty and objectivity”73. For Henry, revelation is propositional. We mean by propositional revelation that God supernaturally communicated his revelation to chosen spokesmen in the express form of cognitive truths, and that the inspired prophetic-apostolic proclamation reliably articulates these truths in sentences that are not internally contradictory […] In brief, the Bible is a propositional revelation of the unchanging truth of God74.

In a correspondence theory of truth, propositions are either true or false. When revelation is then practically reduced to propositions, all these propositions must necessarily be true, hence a strict inerrancy follows. It is clear that the philosophical presuppositions determine the definition of inerrancy. Donald Bloesch perceptively notes that While it is true that many of the fathers of the church described the Bible as free from all error, it is not always certain what they really meant. That most of them operated with a view of truth that is incongruous with the modern empiricist view shows that simply citing scholars of the past in support of this doctrine can be a venture in futility75.

We do not deny that revelation as found in Scripture contains propositions, but we deny that this is the best overall description of the truth of revelation, let alone its primary focus. Kevin Vanhoozer surely is right to state that “the overarching purpose of Scripture is not to serve as raw material for systems of theology but to serve as a charter and guide for the Church and its performance as the body of Christ in the ongoing drama of redemption”76. 2. The Danger of Conflating Revelation and Scripture One reason why inerrancy is more of an urgent issue in evangelical circles as compared to Roman Catholicism is that in Catholic theology Scripture is usually not exclusively equated with revelation – there is 73. J.S. OLDFIELD, The Word Became Text and Dwells among Us? An Examination of the Doctrine of Inerrancy (PhD University of St Andrews Divinity Theses), St Andrews, 2008, p. 102. 74. C.F.H. HENRY, God, Revelation and Authority, vol. 3, Wheaton IL, Crossway Books, 1999, p. 457. 75. BLOESCH, Holy Scripture (n. 72), p. 105. 76. K.J. VANHOOZER, Scripture and Theology: On ‘Proving’ Doctrine Biblically, in M. HIGTON – J. FODOR (eds.), The Routledge Companion to the Practice of Christian Religion, Abingdon, Routledge, 2015, 141-159, p. 157.

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always tradition! Philip Moller quotes Joseph Ratzinger’s observation that “The fact that ‘tradition’ exists is primarily based on the non-identity of the two realities, ‘revelation’ and ‘scripture’”77. Scripture is never the only way in which God is mediated – it is only one among several sacraments. Could it be that Roman Catholic communities are less textual communities, and more sacramental communities, and that this implies that the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy is a less urgent one? Protestant theologian Maarten Wisse seems to concur when he states that “when all forms of God’s mediation are refused – all except one (Scripture), then all weight will be laid on this one form of mediation”78. Too often, one notes in evangelicalism a facile equation of revelation with Scripture. This unfortunately results in a wrongheaded focus. It is a sorry state, since this equation is not reflected in the earliest sources of evangelicalism. Moreover, this problem has already been pointed out decades ago by leading evangelical scholars. The evangelical movement has within itself the resources to develop a theology of revelation and a bibliology that is different and healthier. As the situation stands, one could get the impression that evangelical bibliology is in danger of usurpating the place of Christology. With the equation of the Bible and the Word of God, it is common to understand the Bible as necessary for salvation. Perhaps it is not only the place of Christology that has been taken over by evangelical bibliology; the same danger may well exist where pneumatology is concerned. There is a tendency to understand the Spirit as a function of the Bible, rather than the role of the Bible being made clear in view of pneumatology79. Exemplary of this is the common practice in handbooks of evangelical systematic theology to start with bibliology, before the doctrine of God is broached80. Suggestions to 77. P. MOLLER, What Should They Be Saying about Biblical Inspiration? A Note on the State of the Question, in Theological Studies 74 (2013) 605-631, p. 615. 78. M. WISSE, De Bijbel als afgod? Het tweede gebod als criterium voor de leer van de Heilige Schrift, in Wapenveld 59 (2009) 4-11, p. 7. Wisse prophetically notes that when that is the case [allowing only a scriptural form of God’s mediation], the danger of idolatry [of Scripture] becomes real. 79. We would point to an analogous pitfall in Roman Catholic ecclesiology. We believe that there is a danger in Roman Catholic theology for ecclesiology to usurp the place of Christology. In understanding the Church as the continuation of Christ’s incarnation, the biblical statement that there is “no salvation outside Christ”, is translated as “no salvation apart from the Church”. And as evangelical bibliology tends to usurp pneumatology, so Roman Catholic ecclesiology is in danger of the same. Rather than understanding the Church under the heading of pneumatology, the Spirit tends to be a function of the Church. 80. See, for example Wayne Grudem’s widely referred Systematics: W. GRUDEM, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, Leicester, IVP; Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 1994.

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discuss bibliology under the heading of pneumatology81 have not been fully appropriated. Grenz remarks that this tendency to separate bibliology from pneumatology, and its treatment under revelation, is typical of Reformed theology. According to Grenz, this mirrors “the structure of the Reformed creeds. These generally […] include a statement concerning Scripture as a separate article prior to the confessional statements concerning God”82. More nuanced expressions of Scripture can be found amongst contemporary evangelicals. Although Goheen and Williams start their discussion of the doctrine of Scripture by stating that “from early times the church has confessed sacra scriptura est verbum Dei”, they go on nuancing that “revelation cannot be reduced to Scripture without rejecting Scripture’s own testimony”83. They opt for a fourfold distinction of revelation, stressing their interrelatedness: “creational revelation, redemptive revelation, Christ, and Scripture”. And Daniel Treier is able to maintain the distinction between the biblical texts and the Word incarnate, whilst stressing their connection: “Although Christ is God’s first and final Word, biblical texts do not blush when associating themselves with God’s Word”84. However, also magisterial texts of the Roman Catholic Church sometimes make confused remarks about the differentiation between Scripture and revelation. Reimund Bieringer has pointed this out in a discussion of Dei Verbum, the Interpretation of the Bible in the Church and Verbum Domini. He pleads for a more developed theology of revelation. 81. GRENZ, Revisioning Evangelical Theology (n. 58), pp. 113-115. 82. Ibid., p. 114. 83. GOHEEN – WILLIAMS, Doctrine of Scripture (n. 67), pp. 48 and 50 respectively. I could not find confirmation of the early Church’s confession that Sacra Scriptura est verbum Dei. My searches only found Protestant sources claiming this. Although DV 9 says that “Sacra Scriptura est locutio Dei”, Albert Vanhoye makes clear that there is a difference between verbum Dei and locutio Dei. “When the Council defines Scripture (DV 9), it does not say ‘Sacra Scriptura est verbum Dei’, as some translations would lead one to believe, but rather it says ‘Sacra Scriptura est locutio Dei, quatenus, divino afflante Spiritu, scripto consignatur’ (‘Sacred Scripture is the speaking of God, inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit’). It seems that the Council wanted to avoid too tight an identification between ‘Sacred Scripture’ and ‘Verbum Dei’” (A. VANHOYE, The Reception in the Church of the Dogmatic Constitution “Dei Verbum”, in J. GRANADOS – C. GRANADOS – L. SÁNCHEZ NAVARRO [eds.], Opening Up the Scriptures: Joseph Ratzinger and the Foundations of Biblical Interpretation [Ressourcement: Retrieval and Renewal in Catholic Thought], Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 2008, 104-125, p. 106). 84. D.J. TREIER, The Freedom of God’s Word: Toward an “Evangelical” Dogmatics of Scripture, in O.D. CRISP – F. SANDERS (eds.), The Voice of God in the Text of Scripture: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics, Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 2016, 21-40, p. 25 (my italics).

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It has become clear, he argues, that neither Dei Verbum, nor the two official documents pertaining to its reception, explicitly reflect on the relation between revelation and Sacred Scripture85. 3. The Issue of Authority: Whose Bible, Which Council? Christian Smith convincingly demonstrates the pervasive interpretative pluralism that exists among evangelicals who claim to hold to the inerrancy of Scripture86. If the Bible is our final authority, then one can be sure that the Bible will be moulded into our image and likeness. It is no coincidence, then, that evangelicalism offers very diverse and sometimes contradictory answers based on the Bible. Even for those who hold on to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, the opinions on many important doctrinal, ethical and pastoral issues are widely divergent. But if inerrancy is the linchpin argument in defending biblical authority, and evangelicals cannot agree on that, where then do we stand? This brings us to the topic of the next section: Sola scriptura and the relation of Scripture and tradition. One would think that in Roman Catholicism, the existence of a teaching authority would settle the authority issue. However, as a Protestant in a Catholic theology department, I must say that I have often thought with not a little bewilderment – why do they not stick to their texts? Of course, this betrays perhaps a typical Protestant way of approaching Catholic authority, i.e. by looking at the texts. But it remains a fact that issues are not as easily settled in Catholicism as one would sometimes hope. It is, then, no coincidence that one finds very diverse and sometimes contradictory answers to theological questions in Catholic publications, all based on the same documents of Vatican II. It is well known that the reception of Vatican II is a moot issue and the positions taken by Catholic theologians differ significantly depending on whether they adopt a hermeneutics of continuity or of discontinuity. Our demonstration of the contradictory interpretations of the Council’s opinion on inerrancy is a case in point. It is, for those theologians who allow for human errors in Scripture, easier to allow for a hermeneutics of discontinuity regarding tradition (and Vatican II in particular). If God can speak through the human errors in Scripture, then perhaps it is not too difficult for God to 85. L. BOEVE – R. BIERINGER, Openbaring, Schrift en traditie: God en mens in dialoog, in M. LAMBERIGTS – L. KENIS (eds.), Vaticanum II: Geschiedenis of inspiratie? Theologische opstellen over het tweede Vaticaans Concilie, Antwerpen, Halewijn, 2013, 31-64, p. 47. 86. SMITH, Bible Made Impossible (n. 58).

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overcome human frailty in tradition. If errors in Scripture do not nullify its trustworthiness and its inspiration, then, perhaps, in the same way, the discontinuities of tradition do not nullify its trustworthiness, nor the affirmation of the Spirit’s guidance. 4. Sola scriptura and the Relation of Scripture and Tradition Our previous discussion has shown that for evangelicals adherence to an absolute understanding of sola scriptura does not settle many of the important issues. It is no surprise, then, to find nuanced discussions amongst evangelicals on the meaning of sola scriptura. Quite often, one can find arguments to distinguish sola scriptura from solo scriptura or from nuda scriptura. Some now prefer to speak of prima scriptura to make clear the role of tradition. One example should suffice: Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen states that the principle of sola scriptura “was not meant to deny the role of tradition but rather to define the ultimate norm of revelation and faith: written Scripture. The placement of ancient symbols of faith (The Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds) at the beginning of The Book of Concord, the Lutheran Confessions, speaks volumes of the Reformers’ desire to continue affirming the significance of tradition”87. Kärkkäinen proposes that by the time of the Reformation, the Christian (Catholic) Church knew three distinct positions on the relation between Scripture and tradition88. The first view was that Scripture and only Scripture contained all that was necessary for salvation. The second view maintained that both Scripture and the Church’s tradition contain divine truth. The third view proffered that “since the Holy Spirit abides permanently in the church, the church not only controls the interpretation of Scripture but may also add to revelation”89. Reformation’s sola scriptura 87. KÄRKKÄINEN, Trinity and Revelation (n. 58), p. 97. 88. Henk van den Belt concurs: “Catholic theology in the Middle Ages was more nuanced than later Roman Catholicism. Defining the core of Protestantism as a reaction to later Roman Catholicism erases an appreciation of the Reformation’s catholicity” (H. VAN DEN BELT, Sola Scriptura: An Inadequate Slogan for the Authority of Scripture, in Calvin Theological Journal 51 [2016] 204-226, p. 207). See also the extensive discussion along similar lines in chapter two of M. ALLEN – S.R. SWAIN, Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation, Grand Rapids, MI, Baker Academic, 2015. “Yet sola Scriptura was not intended by its original advocates in the time of the Reformation as an absolute rebuke to tradition or a denial of genuine ecclesial authority. It was a spiritual characterization of the nature of that authority and the role of that tradition” (ibid., p. 49). Kevin VANHOOZER argues similarly in Chapter 3, “Scripture Alone”, of his Biblical Authority after Babel: Retrieving the Solas in the Spirit of Mere Protestant Christianity, Grand Rapids, MI, Brazos, 2016, pp. 109-146. 89. KÄRKKÄINEN, Trinity and Revelation (n. 58), p. 97.

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spoke to that issue by choosing the first position. But the intention was not to downplay the importance of tradition. Rather, it posited the Bible as the “ultimate” norm90. Henk van den Belt has argued that the solas, as watchwords or central doctrines of the Reformation, were formulated in reaction against the ultramontanist Roman Catholicism that declared the pope infallible at Vaticanum I (1870)91. He goes so far as to claim that the view of the relation between Scripture and tradition formulated by Vatican II “comes close to the way the relationship between Scripture and tradition functioned for many sixteenth-century Protestants”92. On the Catholic side, it is since Vatican II mainstream to hold that Scripture and tradition are both partaking of the same source of revelation (DV 9). Although the Council did not make definitive pronouncements on the one-source theory93, it is clearly the majority view. But as Ronald Witherup makes clear, there is still, according to Verbum Domini (§§ 17-18), a need for more study on “refining our understanding of Scripture, tradition, and the magisterium and how they interrelate, and the ‘material sufficiency of scripture’”94. 5. Scripture and the Incarnational Analogy One way to understand the complex nature or attributes of Scripture (and inspiration) is through the use of the incarnational analogy. As the incarnated Word of God is wholly divine and wholly human, so one should understand the nature of Scripture analogically. We believe God to be the final “author” of the Scriptures, and at the same time acknowledge that they are fully products of human authors. Dei Verbum 1395 makes that suggestion, as did Divino Afflante Spiritu 3796 earlier, referring to Chrysostom. Others have pointed out 90. Ibid. 91. VAN DEN BELT, Sola Scriptura (n. 88), p. 218. 92. Ibid., p. 220. 93. Gavin D’COSTA maintains that not making a decision on this issue that was still hotly debated, was an important and felicitous fact of the Council (Revelation, Scripture and Tradition: Some Comments on John Webster’s Conception of ‘Holy Scripture’, in International Journal of Systematic Theology 6 [2004] 337-350, p. 344). 94. WITHERUP, The Word of God at Vatican II (n. 42), p. 75. 95. “Indeed, the words of God, expressed in the words of men, are in every way like human language, just as the Word of the eternal Father, when he took on himself the flesh of human weakness, became like men”. 96. “As the substantial Word of God became like to men in all things ‘except sin’ (Heb. 4:15), so the words of God, expressed in human language, are made like to human speech in every respect except error. In this consists that ‘condescension’ of the God of

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that there is indeed a rich history of that tradition97. Mary Healy finds similar expressions in Origen and Ignatius of Antioch98. This incarnational model, however, has also been explored by evangelicals. It is the basic metaphor used by the evangelical Peter Enns in his book Inspiration and Incarnation, a book that has been widely discussed amongst evangelical theologians and that has been noted by Roman Catholic scholars as well99. Even authors who proffer the model as promising are sometimes issuing caution about potential misuse or misunderstanding. Stephen Chapman is positive about the potential explanatory power of the analogy, but warns against the danger that “it would inappropriately elevate Scripture to divine status, ‘hypostatizing human words’”100. Similar warnings are found in Denis Farkasfalvy101, and Philip Moller102. Several authors (including Michael Bird103, John Webster104, Andrew McGowan105) judge the analogy to be too dangerous or even wrongheaded to make good use of it. providence, which St. John Chrysostom extolled with the highest praise and repeatedly declared to be found in the Sacred Books”. 97. See J.H. CREHAN, The Analogy between “Verbum Dei Incarnatum and Verbum Dei Scriptum” in the Fathers, in The Journal of Theological Studies 6 (1955) 87-90. 98. M. HEALY, Inspiration and Incarnation: The Christological Analogy and the Hermeneutics of Faith, in Letter and Spirit: A Journal of Catholic Biblical Theology 2 (2006) 27-40, p. 29. 99. ENNS, Inspiration and Incarnation (n. 58). The second edition of this book has a post-script in which Enns defends the analogy against the critiques put forward by reviewers. 100. S.B. CHAPMAN, Reclaiming Inspiration for the Bible, in C. BARTHOLOMEW et al. (eds.), Canon and Biblical Interpretation (Scripture and Hermeneutics Series), Milton Keynes, Paternoster; Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 2006, 167-206, p. 192. 101. “Yet one must express caution against pushing this analogy too far. The inspired author and the Holy Spirit who inspires him are not linked by anything even resembling the hypostatic union. There is here no personal union between ‘two authors’; their union is not that of two different natures in the identity of one person” (FARKASFALVY, Inspiration [n. 46], p. 219). 102. MOLLER, What Should They (n. 77), p. 620. 103. M. BIRD, A Qu’ranic View of Scripture?, in J. MERRICK – S.M. GARRET (eds.), Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (Counterpoints Bible and Theology), Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 2013, p. 298. “We should not […] explain the mysterious divine-human interface in Scripture with a model of revelation used to explain the miracle of the incarnation. That is because (1) it will lessen the uniqueness of the incarnation (let us remember that the incarnation is a mode of special revelation that transcends all other special revelations of God in either history or Scripture, on account of the incarnation’s unique manifestation of the fullness and beauty of God enfleshed); (2) it adopts a view of inscripturated revelation that has more in common with Islamic accounts of the Qu’ran than with classic views of Christian Scripture; and (3) it risks turning bibliology into bibliolatry when the Bible becomes a mode of God’s incarnational revelation of himself as revealer and redeemer. Whatever the heuristic advantages such a model may have, it ultimately runs the risk of heterodox disadvantages”.

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For one thing, it is clear that this “incarnational model” has explanatory power across denominational lines – with proponents and detractors of the model in both Roman Catholic and evangelical traditions. Ironically, the model has been used both by defenders of a strict inerrancy and by theologians arguing against a strict inerrancy. Roman Catholic theologian Philip Moller, who approves of the analogy, warns that driving it too far would lead to an absolute inerrancy of Scripture, something which he does not support106. Similarly, evangelical Peter Enns uses the analogy to stress the human side of Scripture, parting ways with a strict inerrancy along CSBI lines. A number of Roman Catholic scholars have recently used the analogy as an argument that Scripture is inerrant just as Christ is without sin107. One wonders why the analogy of the incarnation always applied to “errors” in Scripture and not to “sin”. Is it because a text cannot “sin”108? The incarnational analogy of Scripture does not necessarily imply a text 104. “Like any extension of the notion of incarnation (in ecclesiology or ethics, for example) the result can be Christologically disastrous, in that it may threaten the uniqueness of the Word’s becoming flesh. […] Moreover, the application of an analogy from the hypostatic union can scarcely avoid divinising the Bible by claiming some sort of ontological identity between the biblical texts and the self-communication of God” (J. WEBSTER, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch [Current Issues in Theology], Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 22-23). Webster builds on G.C. Berkouwer, who also protests against the analogy. 105. MCGOWAN, Divine Spiration (n. 30), pp. 119ff. McGowan rejects the incarnational model. He refers to the objection that T.F. Torrance made to Benjamin Warfield’s bibliology. Torrance “said that for Warfield’s position on Scripture to be correct, there would have to have been an incarnation of the Holy Spirit” (ibid., p. 120). 106. “While incarnation and inspiration are two modes of God’s condescension and accommodation to humanity, the complete inerrancy of Scripture is not a proper conclusion. Rather, divine condescension can accommodate human defects, with the consequence that the charism of inspiration need not require that a human writer’s literary ability be elevated by the Holy Spirit. The shortcomings and limitations that can be found in the inspired texts point to the results of authentic human activity that reflect the limits of ability, capacity, history, and culture” (MOLLER, What Should They [n. 77], p. 620). 107. B. PITRE, The Mystery of God’s Word: Inspiration, Inerrancy, and the Interpretation of Scripture, in Letter and Spirit: A Journal of Catholic Biblical Theology 6 (2010) 47-66. HAHN, For the Sake of Our Salvation (n. 4); M. LEVERING, The Inspiration of Scripture: A Status Quaestionis, in Letter and Spirit 6 (2010) 281-314. 108. Reimund Bieringer and Mary Elsbernd argue that (some) biblical texts do have sinful dimensions: “It is important that revelation is not identified with the biblical text, but is seen as mediated by it. The biblical text is a privileged locus of revelation. This enables us to accept sinful dimensions in the text without linking sin to revelation” (R. BIERINGER – M. ELSBERND, The “Normativity of the Future” Approach: Its Roots, Development, Current State and Challenges, in R. BIERINGER et al. [eds.], The Normativity of the Future: Reading Biblical and Other Authoritative Texts in an Eschatological Perspective [Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia, 61], Leuven – Paris – Walpole, MA, Peeters, 2010, 3-25, p. 17). Although we agree that biblical texts can give rise (and have done so) to sin, we think that reading texts canonically rather than in isolation, and taking the spiritual sense into account, prevents us from locating sinful dimensions in biblical texts.

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free from errors. Jesus Christ, at the same time fully human and fully divine, is free from sin, but not necessarily free from errors. The human person Jesus stumbled and fell, made mistakes in grammar and spelling, yet these (and other) errors did not prevent him to accomplish his mission without fault: to save humankind. It is sin that mars the relation with God and people, not errors. Inerrancy, with its focus on “errors” points in the direction of propositional truth, whereas “free from sin” points towards personal, relational truth. We believe, therefore, that Farkasfalvy is more to the point when he states that the incarnational model of inspiration “might hold the key, or at least one important key, to the controversial issue of the Bible’s truth and inerrancy: it frames an obvious corollary by showing that the Truth of the Bible is Christ himself, pure and absolute”109. In any case, the incarnational model should be further explored. We will do so in the last section of this article, where we suggest that a sacramental view of Scripture should be investigated as a way forward in the current debate110. V. THE WAY FORWARD If the doctrine of inerrancy has any future, this future is ecumenical, pneumatological, and sacramental. 1. The Way Forward Is First of All Ecumenical For the sake of the Church and the world, Roman Catholic theologians should not leave the terrain of inerrancy to evangelicals alone and vice versa. Our call may not be as authoritative as that of Benedict XVI in Verbum Domini, but nevertheless we issue a similar invitation to further study and theologically develop the thinking on inspiration and the truth of Scripture and their interrelatedness. Shawn Flynn remarks that Vatican II witnessed an historical precedent of the fecundity of ecumenical awareness for the doctrine of Scripture in the input of the Secretariat for Christian Unity to Dei Verbum – “ecumenical awareness was an early motivator for a rearticulating of theology, which in the end resulted in a more cohesive expression of inspiration

109. FARKASFALVY, Inspiration (n. 46), p. 234. 110. Farkasfalvy mentions two areas of further research. The first one should investigate its congruence with the Church’s tradition on biblical inspiration. The second area concerns its relation to Christology and the Christological dogma’s (ibid., p. 235).

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across denominations”111. Flynn is optimistic about “more unity in Catholic and some Protestant circles, in how to express revelation and inerrancy, because of the co-work in more technical areas [such as exegesis] that have real effects on questions of revelation and inspiration”112. On another level, Lieven Boeve stressed the dialogical character of revelation as found in DV, and Vatican II as a whole. If indeed revelation is dialogical, then perhaps, if the “separated brothers and sisters” are included to the theological reflection of that dialogue, new aspects of that revelation will be uncovered113. Conversely, it can also be argued that because of the nature of revelation and the nature of the Church, when the Church is divided, she is prevented from hearing correctly God’s speaking to her. I concur with Daniel Treier that a doctrine of Scripture “should focus on authoritative consensus regarding God’s action”114. He perceptively notes that “polemics arise because the church no longer hears the Word as one body […]”115. Indeed, the Church catholic is needed for the people of God to grow in understanding116. Or, as Kärkkäinen says, “Ecclesiastical consensus also has to be acknowledged as the common way for doctrine to develop”117. It seems, thus, that there is need for ecumenical cooperation to better discern God’s speaking, including the theological reflection on how he speaks and what his speaking accomplishes. For evangelicals, being able to draw upon the theological tradition of Roman Catholicism, is certainly gain. Likewise, since the place of the Bible in liturgy and personal devotion amongst evangelicals is sometimes more prominent, this resource can be used ecumenically to the benefit of the universal Church. 2. The Way Forward Is Pneumatological A doctrine of Scripture should be thoroughly set in pneumatological categories. Systematic theologies increasingly take this into account. An opportunity presents itself here to recognize the ecumenical resource 111. FLYNN, Catholic Biblical Interpretation (n. 52), p. 586, n. 29. 112. Ibid., p. 586. 113. BOEVE – BIERINGER, Openbaring (n. 85), p. 33. Although not the focus of this article, but one could analogously make the same point for including other religions in the conversation. 114. TREIER, Freedom of God’s Word (n. 84), p. 23. 115. Ibid. 116. Ibid., pp. 31-32. “The perennial necessity of growth in understanding on the part of God’s people […]. This growth is not only personal but also congregational, generational, and geographical, as the church seeks to correspond with Christ’s fullness as one new humanity (Eph 4:13-16)”. 117. KÄRKKÄINEN, Trinity and Revelation (n. 58), p. 101.

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of the contributions of Pentecostal theologians. Contributions of leading scholars in this area are only neglected to our loss118. Amos Yong speaks of a hermeneutical trialectic of Spirit-Word-Community where none of the three are prioritized, but where, epistemologically Spirit comes first. He even claims that “Word works alongside both Spirit and Community, rather than norming them, or alone”119. Reformed theologians van den Brink and van der Kooi remark that they do not follow an incarnational model for understanding Scripture, but prefer setting the doctrine in a pneumatological context120. They explain that a doctrine of Scripture should not be discussed primarily in epistemological key – as is the case of the older evangelical contributions – but in the context of soteriology and pneumatology121. Goheen and Williams also argue that a doctrine of Scripture should attend more closely to the Spirit. Following Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck, they see the Spirit’s work in Scripture’s origin, its content and its powerful outworking. The origin of Scripture is to be found in the witness of the Spirit to Christ and his salvific work. That is also what Scripture is about, for in Scripture, “the Spirit testifies to Christ and his salvation”122. But Scripture is not static, let alone dead letter. It is powerful even today through the continuing testimony of the Spirit to Christ and his salvation123. Discussion of a doctrine of Scripture in a pneumatological context provides opportunities to transcend the deadlocks of a more epistemological focus. It creates more ecumenical space compared to foundationalist approaches that deal with defining Scripture’s nature vis-à-vis tradition and other sources of theology. 3. The Way Forward Considers the Sacramentality of Scripture Bridging the christological focus of the incarnational model of Scripture and the pneumatological categories, is a sacramental view of Scripture. Here as well, there seems to occur another ecumenical convergence between Catholics and evangelicals. The sacramental dimension of Scripture is observed by theologians of both traditions. 118. The works of Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong prove to be a rich resource both for evangelicals and Roman Catholics. 119. YONG, Spirit-Word-Community (n. 58), p. 307. 120. G. VAN DEN BRINK – C. VAN DER KOOI, Christelijke dogmatiek: Een inleiding, Zoetermeer, Boekencentrum, 2012, p. 493. 121. Ibid., p. 498. 122. GOHEEN – WILLIAMS, Doctrine of Scripture (n. 67), p. 61. 123. Ibid.

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Gerald O’Collins claims that “Dei Verbum puts on display sacramental language” when it establishes “the nature of revelation as salvific and sacramental”124. Elsewhere, O’Collins states that “the biblical writings […] participate in the truth that [Christ] himself is. […T]hese writings help to communicate truly that saving and revealing event. […] He is the Word of God, in which the inspired words of the Scripture participate and to which they witness”125. Farkasfalvy states that already the Church Fathers, starting with Origen126, spoke of “quasi-sacramental” qualities of Scripture127. He notes that the word sacramentum used by the Church Fathers had a wider meaning than that developed by scholastic theologians, but nevertheless, “we find explicit texts all the way up to the twelfth century in which the written word of the Bible is said to be ‘a sacrament’”128. Mary Healy, commenting on the incarnational analogy for the doctrine of Scripture in the Church Fathers, remarks that this christological analogy is not merely a felicitous and enlightening comparison. It is making a theological assertion the significance of which is often overlooked – namely, that Scripture itself is a sacrament. That is, Scripture is a visible sign that both signifies and makes present the invisible divine mystery129.

Considering Scripture to have sacramental aspects is perhaps to be expected within the Roman Catholic tradition. Nevertheless, the scholastic turn that solidified sacrament into seven discrete “signs” prevented the earlier wider usage of the term to be put to use theologically for a doctrine of Scripture. Here again, the greater opening since Vatican II towards the theology of the Reformation with its emphasis on the Word of God and the Church as creatura verbi, contributed to Roman Catholic theologians rediscovering the sacramentality of the Word. That evangelicals would consider speaking of the sacramentality of Scripture is more surprising, given the anti-sacramental tendencies of the movement. On the other hand, evangelicalism has a high view of Scripture and a personal and communal spirituality fueled by Scripture. 124. G. O’COLLINS, The Second Vatican Council: Message and Meaning, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2014. It is interesting to see that O’Collins (pp. 144-146) discusses a potential ecumenical origin to Dei Verbum’s sacramental language for Scripture, although he finds a more direct source for that in Sacrosanctum Concilium. 125. G. O’COLLINS, Rethinking Fundamental Theology: Toward a New Fundamental Theology, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 243. 126. Farkasfalvy notes that Henri de Lubac was one of the first to note this history starting with Origen (Inspiration [n. 46], p. 189, n. 36). 127. Ibid., p. 189. 128. Ibid. 129. HEALY, Inspiration and Incarnation (n. 98), p. 29.

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Scripture’s close association with the Word of God creates space to understand Scripture as a means to participate in the life of God. Hence, an opening is made to consider Scripture as sacramental. Of course, Scripture has always been considered as a primary means of grace by the churches of the Reformation. Van den Brink and van der Kooi confirm that “the Reformation considered preaching the Word as a means of grace, because it is the means through which God communicates with us”130. John Webster considers “means of grace” as a helpful concept “to state the relation of a creaturely text to divine revelation”131. He appreciates that “it affords a way of affirming the instrumental role of Scripture in God’s self-communication without rendering the means divine in itself”132. Daniel Treier claims that the orality of Scripture “stresses personal and contextual immediacy in a way that involves analogies of participation for subsequent textual audiences hearing the Word”. Although Treier does not speak of sacramentality of the Word, participatory language points in that direction, because orality’s immediacy “invites a text’s later audiences into a drama of interpretation that depends on shared identity with the original and earlier hearers: We participate in the one people of God”133. More outspoken is Roger Olson, who claims that concerning “inspiration and trustworthiness of Scripture it might be helpful to view Scripture sacramentally (as sacrament of God’s Word)”134. According to Olson, The Bible is the sacrament of God’s Word because, although in one aspect it is a human book of human words and sentences, it is also a material channel of God’s grace and is uniquely used by God to bring people into transforming encounter with God that informs and changes them135.

His approach is also pneumatological in recognizing the Spirit as “the sacramental authorizing agent of the Bible”136. 130. VAN DEN BRINK – VAN DER KOOI, Christelijke dogmatiek: Een inleiding (n. 120). 131. WEBSTER, Holy Scripture (n. 104), p. 22, although he prefers the category of Holy Scripture as “sanctified”. 132. Ibid., p. 25. He issues a warning, however, because “there is a tendency in any theology of mediation (sacramental, ministerial and symbolic as well as textual) to allow the mediating reality to eclipse the selfmediation of God in Christ and Spirit. Any notion of ‘means’, that is, has to be purged of the assumption that the mediated divine reality is itself inert or absent until ‘presented’ by that which mediates”. 133. TREIER, Freedom of God’s Word (n. 84), p. 33. 134. R.E. OLSON, The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity & Diversity, Downers Grove, IL, IVP; Leicester, Apollos, 2002, p. 106. 135. Ibid. 136. Ibid., p. 107.

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The evangelical champion of the sacramentality of Scripture, is undoubtedly Hans Boersma. The publication of his book Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church in 2017 shows an ecumenical way forward. Central to the exegesis of the Church Fathers, claims Boersma, is the search for the sacramental reality, i.e. the real presence of Christ in Scripture. Boersma’s approach is one of retrieval (ressourcement) in the spirit of the Nouvelle théologie. His main point is that “a sacramental reading of Scripture lies at the heart of patristic interpretation […]”137. The larger part of the book is a discussion of homilies and commentaries of Church Fathers, in which he shows that their focus was on discovering Christ already contained in the Old Testament. The sacramentality of Scripture is clearly a concept that should be further explored. It holds promise in that it combines several elements of importance for a doctrine of Scripture that we pointed out before. Scripture as sacrament avoids the pitfall of an overly propositional conception of revelation. A sacramental view navigates the relation between Scripture and revelation. In its retrieval of patristic sources, it develops a dialogue between Scripture and tradition, establishing a model of acknowledging authority where it belongs. It certainly develops the incarnational model of Scripture in an ecumenical and pneumatological way. But what about inerrancy, have we forgotten it? Here also, a sacramental view of Scripture can perhaps help. The baptismal water must not be one hundred percent clean to be able to baptize, the bread and wine do not need to be perfect to communicate Christ, the priest should not necessarily be without sin in order to speak the absolution. So perhaps a sacramental understanding of Scripture, can help us shift our focus from errors (real or alleged) in Scripture to meeting Christ in Scripture so that we become transformed into his likeness, by the power of the Spirit, to the glory of God. KU Leuven Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies Sint-Michielsstraat 4/3100 BE-3000 Leuven Belgium [email protected]

Wouter BIESBROUCK

137. H. BOERSMA, Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church, Grand Rapids, MI, Baker Academic, 2017, p. 17.

THE “RETURN” OF NATURAL THEOLOGY INSIGHTS FROM THE FIRST VATICAN COUNCIL AND KARL BARTH

The five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation is a most opportune time to revisit some of the major issues that have divided Protestants, Catholics and Anglicans when doing Christian theology. One particularly thorny topic has been the status of “natural theology”; The roots of the controversy go back to Luther’s indictment of Catholic scholastic theology and the underappreciation of the deleterious effects of sin. With the advent of the Enlightenment and the rise of secularity, many modern thinkers have made significant philosophical and scientific challenges to the very existence of the subject as well. Yet the point of departure for much of the contemporary ecumenical dialogue, in the Catholic world, stems from the First Vatican Council and the claim that there is natural knowledge of God and Karl Barth’s “Nein”, in the Protestant domain, which categorically rejects natural revelation. This theological debate centers on how to understand the role of sin and grace as well as reason and faith when doing theology. With the supplanting of metaphysics by hermeneutics, numerous postmodern thinkers have added their voices and championed the demise of foundationalism, natural theology and proofs for God’s existence. The question, then, is whether there is any way of doing natural theology in the contemporary context that could be ecumenically acceptable and intellectually credible? This paper will try to answer tentatively that pertinent question. First, there is a review of the teaching of the First Vatican Council on the Catholic understanding of the natural knowledge of God and the Reformed rejection by Karl Barth which sets the parameters for much of the (post)modern ecumenical conversation. Second, the natural theology of the Catholic theologian, Walter Kasper, and the Anglican theologian, John Macquarrie, will be examined for insights into a possible ecumenical convergence on method. Both proceed following “thick” approaches to natural theology that are sensitive to the postmodern situation and fully cognizant of the assertions of Vatican I and Barth. Third, there is a historical and theological reevaluation of the First Vatican Council’s teachings on natural theology and Karl Barth’s unyielding repudiation in the light of contemporary Catholic and Protestant scholarship. Fourth, there is a conclusion which sketches the broad ecumenical parameters for this “return” of natural theology.

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I. THE FIRST VATICAN COUNCIL AND KARL BARTH ON NATURAL THEOLOGY The Reformation brought about many theological debates with Roman Catholicism in the sixteenth century, especially, issues connected with Scripture and tradition. But the notion of natural theology and the rational knowableness of God were not among them1. Rather, the beginning of differences of opinion about natural theology, while having its roots in Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther, really stems from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries with the First Vatican Council and writings of Karl Barth. The First Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church took place during the turbulent years of 1869-1870. It produced the Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith and the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ2. It was a brief council because it was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian war, but it still yielded significant teachings on “faith and reason” as well as papal infallibility and primacy. For questions about natural theology, though, the discussion is limited to “On the Catholic Faith” (Dei Filius). This constitution begins with a sense of foreboding about the many intellectual and theological challenges from inside and outside the ecclesial community. The stated mission of the teaching office is to defend Catholic truth and condemn errors in doctrine3. A bunker mentality had been brewing for years in Rome with the Reformation and the Enlightenment being the principal perceived threats. The Protestant surrender of the faith to the judgment of the individual and the rise of democracy in Europe undermined Church cohesion and the teaching authority of the magisterium. The demoting of Scripture to the category of mythology, by humanist scholars, eviscerated the divine inspiration and content of the Bible. The rise of rationalism and naturalism replaced Christ and the mystical body of the Church, as sources of truth with reason and science. The growing acceptance of materialism, atheism, pantheism and deism were rejections of the existence, transcendence and presence of God in nature and history. Additionally, the Church had to contend with the internal threats from Catholic conservativism, such as fideism and traditionalism, which rejected the role of reason by relying solely on faith or primordial revelation and 1. W. KASPER, The God of Jesus Christ, trans. M.J. O’CONNELL, New York, Crossroad, 1994, p. 58. 2. P. HÜNERMANN (ed.), Dei Filius, in Heinrich Denzinger: Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals, San Francisco, CA, Ignatius Press, 432012, 3000-3045 (pp. 600-609) (henceforth DH). 3. DH 3000.

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Jansenism, which held that God’s grace irresistibly determines human decisions in matters of faith. In general, the Roman Curia adopted an unflinching rejection of the spirit of the age4. The Council response took the form of a treatise on “faith and reason” in the neo-scholastic frame of the dual orders of knowledge: natural truth and revealed truth are to be distinguished, but still coordinated5. The First Vatican Council begins with a survey of the divine attributes, drawn from philosophical and biblical theology, to delineate the Catholic doctrine of God. It affirms that there is one, true, living God who is the Creator and Lord of all visible and invisible things. The holy, catholic, apostolic, Roman Church believes and confesses that God is almighty, eternal, immense, infinite, perfect, absolutely simple, and an immutable substance that is really and essentially distinct from and ineffably exalted above the terrestrial and celestial domains6. The world is freely created “out of nothing” by God to manifest the divine goodness, almighty power and perfection. This creation is guided by divine providence, as the omniscient and omnipotent God mightily orders all things sweetly and bestows blessings on creatures. Additionally, as outlined later in the canons of chapter one, these insights are crafted for a proper theology of God and creation in the light of the intellectual climate. There the Council condemns the claim that only matter really exists. It condemns the claim that the essence of God and the universe are one and the same. It condemns the claim that the universe emanates from God and God is evolving with the universe. And the Council condemns the claim that God creates out of necessity and without freedom7. Collectively, these ecclesial statements are crafted to officially reject deism, materialism and pantheism, as anathema, by affirming that the transcendent God creates and continues to interact immanently with beings. Dei Filius demonstrates that Catholic theology has always been a conversation between the truths of revelation and the truths achieved by reason8. The centerpiece of natural theology is found in the opening statement on revelation in chapter two: “The same holy Mother Church holds and teaches that God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty from the things that were created through the natural light 4. H. KÜNG, Does God Exist: An Answer for Today, trans. E. QUINN, New York, Doubleday & Company, 1980, pp. 510-511. 5. Ibid., p. 512. 6. DH 3001. 7. DH 3021-3025. 8. J.A. BONSOR, Athens and Jerusalem: The Role of Philosophy in Theology, New York, Paulist, 1993, p. 11.

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of human reason, for ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature … has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made”9. The claim seems to be that God can “possibly” be known by the power of reason from created things, not that God is actually “known”10. And, even if God is known, it does not follow that all the divine attributes surveyed in chapter one will be comprehensively achieved either11. What the Council is endeavoring to do here is reject the dogmatic claim of fideists and traditionalist that God can “only” be known through faith and primitive revelation12. Also, it wants to say that this natural knowledge shows that there are credible signs for faith that the believer, rationalist and atheist can ponder. This quote about natural theology continues with reference to the indispensability of revelation: “But it pleased his wisdom and goodness to reveal himself and the eternal decrees of his will in another and supernatural way, as the apostle says: ‘in many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son’”13. Revelation is absolutely essential for the salvific knowledge of the Incarnation, the Triune God, the power of grace, and the supernatural end of ever-lasting participation in the beatific vision. Faith is a supernatural virtue and gift. And, through faith, one is able to voluntarily cooperate with divine grace14. But reason can really know something of God too and faith is never a “blind leap”. Therefore, reason and faith work by mutual dependence in Catholic theology. However, these distinctions are never separations, because Vatican I does not claim that natural knowledge is attained without divine grace, only without revelation15. It is only in “principle” that the natural and created order are distinguished from the supernatural and graced order, in reality these two are inextricably connected in human experience16. Karl Barth was also deeply vexed by the cultural and theological developments of the nineteenth century. His “theology of crisis” was crafted in response to liberal Protestant theology and neo-scholastic Roman Catholic theology. Barth felt that both had supplanted the central place of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ with human experience,

9. DH 3004. 10. KÜNG, Does God Exist (n. 4), p. 513. 11. J.A. ALLEN, A Commentary on the First Vatican Council’s Dei Filius, in Irish Theological Quarterly 81 (2016) 138-151, p. 143. 12. KÜNG, Does God Exist (n. 4), pp. 512-513. 13. DH 3004. 14. DH 3010. 15. KÜNG, Does God Exist (n. 4), p. 513. 16. BONSOR, Athens and Jerusalem (n. 8), p. 12.

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human values, human nature or human reason. Embodying the spirit of Martin Luther, he is skeptical of these optimistic accounts of progress in culture, developments in doctrine, and the deceits of bewitching reason and science. Barth demands that theology move from the focus on subjective experience back to the Bible, from secular history back to divine revelation, from theological speculation back to the proclamation of the gospel, from religiosity back to the Christian faith, and from human existential needs and contemporary questions back to the “wholly other” God manifested in the only Son of God. Theology, then, is not an intellectual response to the human situation, but the response of faith to an encounter with the Word of God. According to Hans Küng, it is in the name of this wholly other God that Barth protests decidedly against the natural theology of the First Vatican Council and its claim that humans can coordinate with God through an interplay between “reason and faith”17. Barth says there is only the one revelation of Jesus Christ and apart from him one can say nothing about God, human beings, or their relationship. Any concept of an original (general) revelation based on the cosmos or history is an empty myth filled with illusion. Barth is emphatic that the salvific revelation of atonement is based only on the covenant of grace in Christ. The Cross is a supernatural event that is not amenable to discovery by natural theology; this divine grace must make itself known18. For Barth, natural theology is the human enterprise of trying to establish knowledge of God independently of faith and revelation. Human beings stand over against God and make themselves equal to God. Natural theology is an activity of human self-exposition and self-justification with no divine knowledge yielded19. The effort is bankrupt because it does not recognize that the natural human being is a complete sinner and incapable of knowing anything of the God of biblical revelation20. Thus, there is no permanent “point of contact” for divine revelation within human nature. And this general critique of modern theology takes on an even sharper edge with regard to Vatican I. Barth thinks the Council created a cleavage in monotheism by advocating that natural and supernatural knowledge co-exist. The holy Bible only knows the one God of the Jewish patriarchs and father of Jesus Christ who “acts” to save his people from sin and death21. Vatican I also seems to abstract from 17. KÜNG, Does God Exist (n. 4), p. 515. 18. H. GOLLWITZER, Karl Barth Church Dogmatics: A Selection with Introduction, Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox, 1961, p. 50. 19. Ibid., p. 51. 20. See K. BARTH, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God, London, T&T Clark, 2004, vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 130, 155. 21. KÜNG, Does God Exist (n. 4), pp. 516-517.

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salvation history, by grounding Christian faith in metaphysics (through the analogy of being), wherein commonality between creator and creature is claimed to be a constant feature22. Barth rhetorically calls this the invention of the Anti-Christ and the main reason against becoming Roman Catholic23. He says, faith is always beyond human ideas and a “leap into the darkness of the unknown, a flight into empty air”24. There is no “point of contact” inherent within human nature; rather it is something evoked by the Word of God. In other words, dialectical theology sees a contradiction rather than continuity between God and humanity25. Still, it is impossible to completely appreciate Barth’s caustic critique of natural theology without reference to the Nazism of Germany in the 1930s. He felt that the Reformation had left the question of natural theology open, but the rise of Adolph Hitler made it an acute problem for the Evangelical Church26. This event brought into clear relief that the natural theology of coordinating the divine and human in liberal Protestantism and Roman Catholicism had led to an uncritical accommodation to the prevailing political climate27. Over the past two centuries, Christian theology had fallen into the regrettable habit of proclaiming the Word of God in conjunction with reason, conscience, emotions, history, nature and culture28. The goal was to find a “point of contact” and credible form for the message29. According to Barth, this tradition of adding to revelation, whatever new trend or movement of the human spirit was in vogue, produced a situation in which all checks and balances for theology were lost to the strength of interested parties30. Therefore, when Adolph Hitler promulgated a new revelation of German nationalism based on race with himself as the messiah, there were no liberal resources available to plausibly object to this move, so some Christian Churches and clergy came to support Hitler. For Barth, then, this shows that once natural theology is allowed to take residence in the Church the logic eventually denies the revelation of God in Christ31. 22. Ibid., p. 517. 23. BARTH, Church Dogmatics (n. 20), vol. 1, pt. 1, p. xiii. 24. BARTH, The Epistle to the Romans, London, Oxford University Press, 1933, p. 98, quoted in W.C. PLACHER, A History of Christian Theology: An Introduction, Philadelphia, PA, Westminster Press, 1983, p. 292. 25. A.E. MCGRATH, Christian Theology: An Introduction, Oxford, Blackwell, 22000, p. 107. 26. GOLLWITZER, Karl Barth Church Dogmatics (n. 18), p. 54. 27. H. KÜNG, Theology for the Third Millennium: An Ecumenical View, New York, Anchor Books, 1988, p. 265. 28. GOLLWITZER, Karl Barth Church Dogmatics (n. 18), p. 55. 29. Ibid., p. 57. 30. Ibid., pp. 55-57. 31. Ibid., p. 56.

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II. MODERNITY AND CHRISTIAN NATURAL THEOLOGY The modern natural theology debate of the twentieth century is carried out in the wake of the First Vatican Council (neo-Scholasticism and knowing God through reason) and Karl Barth (dialectical theology and knowing God through faith). During the Enlightenment, theologians had been struggling to defend the reasonability of faith convictions before the bar of empirical science and secular reason. Arguments based solely on faith, tradition and authority were no longer credible32. This new thinking was called “modern theism” and it endeavored to defend the existence of God as objectively knowable. For the status of truth, it seemed that only the necessary, universal, ahistorical and unconditional principles of reason would suffice33. The theological strategy was to demonstrate, then, by inference, from the “designed” natural world to the existence of the divine “Designer”. God was rationalistically presented as a transcendent being that was personal, incorporeal, and inaccessible to direct sense experience34. This public theology focused on proofs for the existence of God, the nature and attributes of God, and the divine operations. The affirmation of God’s existence was based on the perceived regularity and complexity of the natural world – a posteriori discernment and teleological reasoning. God was the Supreme Being and the onto-theological First Cause35. This generic theology stated that the divine must be universally accessible and not limited to the historically, culturally or religiously particular36. However, this metaphysical version of natural theology is only the most famous type. As the history of Christian theology shows, there are many ways of doing natural theology, which unveils that it is a multilayered discipline and not reducible to the modern theistic version. And most theologies of revelation have always included some connection to natural theology. These thick-type of approaches to natural theology additionally engage the biblical, ecclesiastical and sacramental aspects of Christianity as the recent work of Walter Kasper and John Macquarrie so ably demonstrate.

32. J.D. CAPUTO, Philosophy and Theology, Nashville, TN, Abingdon, 2006, p. 10. 33. Ibid., p. 26. 34. N. FRANKENBERRY, Natural Theology, in I.A. MCFARLAND – D.A.S. FERGUSSON – K. KILBY – I.R. TORRANCE (eds.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011, 335-338, p. 336. 35. J.D. CAPUTO, Who Comes after the God of Metaphysics?, in ID. (ed.), The Religious, Oxford, Blackwell, 2002, 1-19, p. 2. 36. A.E. MCGRATH, Re-Imagining Nature: The Promise of a Christian Natural Theology, Oxford, Wiley Blackwell, 2017, p. 19.

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Walter Kasper has thought very seriously about natural theology from a Roman Catholic perspective. He rejects the abstract theism of a unipersonal God of modernity as a heretical substitution for Christian Trinitarian monotheism37. Natural theology is the reflection on the presuppositions and conditions of the possibility of faith, says Kasper, and it is done under the umbrella of salvation history. He points out that the Bible practices a type of natural theology in the creation narratives, the psalms, Jesus’ parables, and the Gospel of John, with the Letter to the Romans authoritatively confirming the natural experience and “natural knowledge” of God38. It testifies that all people know God. The invisible qualities of the creator (eternal power and divine nature) are gleaned through created things and the divine law through the human conscience. Reality is open to the interpretation of reason, since it is intelligently ordered by the divine logos. A major presupposition of biblical natural theology states: the order of creation and salvation history are an inherent unity. Jesus Christ is the definitive truth about God, human beings and the world. The Christian believer can see more of reality through faith in the Son of God as the ultimate ground, meaning, and goal of history39. And the believer is called upon to be ready to “explain” the reason for being so hopeful about Christian revelation (1 Pet 3,15). This demonstrates that the Bible understands faith as enabling a reasonable account that avoids reduction to a blind leap. If biblical revelation is to be interpreted in accordance with reality, then it must substantiate its internal intelligibility by continuing its “prophetic interpretation of reality”40. This unity of creation and salvation translates into the axioms that grace presupposes nature and faith presupposes reason. The Bible understands nature (reality) as created. It is not independent and self-enclosed, but dynamically open to elevating grace and beatific fulfillment. Hence, it is only a “relatively independent meaningful structure” within the greater order of grace41. This means that divine revelation presupposes that nature is constituently dependent upon the divine source and a human subject capable of listening, comprehending and freely accepting. For Kasper, the transcendental presuppositions of faith and the salvational-historical situation need to be joined42. Faith is “given” through human hearing and understanding, and so, it is subject to rational 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

KASPER, The God of Jesus Christ (n. 1), pp. 294-295. Ibid., p. 66. Ibid., pp. 78-79. Ibid., pp. 68, 78. Ibid., p. 73. Ibid., p. 70.

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accountability. In sum, natural theology emphasizes the internal reasonableness of faith and shows that its substantiation comes from itself with no abridgment of faith. And faith is the personal act of the whole human being (not just intellect) that “trusts” it will be able to respond to intellectual challenges43. Kasper takes these basic biblical presuppositions and translates them into the context of the twentieth century and beyond. He wants to navigate a position between the biblical idea that “faith comes from hearing” and the modern notion that “faith is an expression of religious experience”44. This hermeneutical circle is an essential insight about historical consciousness and religion: the transmission of faith and the experience of faith are inextricably related. Faith guides the interpretation of experience – the interpretation of experience clarifies and confirms faith. The provisos are that the message is primary and present experience is never to be absolutized. With this established, natural theology emerges in the transcendental reflection of faith on the conditions of its own possibility45. The theological understanding of nature is registered in the category of unlimited freedom – God freely creates and saves – which translates to the human situation of limited freedom. Therefore, Kasper is grounding natural theology in the transcendental experience of infinite mystery, with the added realization that no empirical method could ever demonstrate the existence or non-existence of God. The natural access point for theological reflection is the transcendental experience. An experience that encounters an unfathomable mystery at the core of human knowing and willing: an inaccessible and infinite horizon for all experience which is completely different from the finite experience of objects. This “wholly-other” mystery can be read as either an abyss of nothingness or as a gracious ground of protection and support. History bears out these different fluctuations through the dual experiences of meaning and meaninglessness. Kasper points out that reality is ambiguous and open to many possible interpretations: theism, pantheism, atheism, nihilism and agnosticism46. The transcendental experience clearly emerges from living life attentively. An experienced person is marked by open-mindedness and adaptability to change through diverse experiences of reality. Deep experiential knowledge emerges from repetition and reinterpretation and increasing proficiency of intercourse with

43. 44. 45. 46.

Ibid., pp. 71-72. Ibid., p. 80. Ibid., p. 77. Ibid., p. 86.

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reality. Natural theology, then, is no longer about objective proofs for the divine, but rather indirect experience47. It is about the search for the natural access point of faith within the human transcendental condition and the dependent constitution of the world upon the infinite48. However, natural theology is only possible after the event of the divine revelation of the Word, that is, after faith has discerned that God created and redeemed the world with wisdom, compassion and freedom. In other words, it is only possible for natural theology to arise in the full sense, after the Christ-event, but only as a quasi-independent sub-discipline within theology proper. The knowledge of the triune God equips natural theology with the tools to discern signs, traces, hints and glimpses of the divine in experience and history. But natural theology had pre-apprehended a general understanding of the authentic character of God, through experience of the all-pervasive ground, already to some extent. A major realization is that the source of reality can be read as a being who freely decides to “give” rise to the world. And, as something that generously gives existence to beings, this all-encompassing mystery is “best” described as personal. Only a person can give a gift and only a person can be relational and open to another. As the superabundant source of all giving, God is glimpsed as “subsistent being itself”49. This is key, for Kasper, because it means perceiving that reality is not only a substance, but rather a personal action, saving event, meaningful happening, and gracious freedom. Consequently, reality is love. The inherent incompleteness of human craving (always longing for more and chafing in disappointment when language fails) points to this infinite mystery of fulfillment and freedom. This preapprehension of unconditional meaning is imperative for grasping the conditional meaning of human experiences50. General experience imperceptibly moves over into religious experience through the intentional orientation to absolute fulfillment and trusting that consummation is possible51. In sum, the hermeneutical circle is foundational to Kasper’s understanding of natural theology. The “promise” of natural theology is that it really knows something of the divine from the world, but the “burden” lies in trying to think about this mystery without confusing and limiting to human conceptualization52. 47. Ibid., p. 85. 48. A.J. GODZIEBA, The Promise and the Burden of Natural Theology, in K.M. COLBERG – R.A. KRIEG (eds.), The Theology of Cardinal Kasper: Speaking Truth in Love, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2010, 42-58, p. 44. 49. Ibid., p. 48. 50. KASPER, The God of Jesus Christ (n. 1), p. 114. 51. GODZIEBA, The Promise and the Burden of Natural Theology (n. 48), p. 53. 52. Ibid., p. 43.

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The Anglican theologian John Macquarrie has also thought deeply about the status of natural theology after modernity. He points out that natural theology is a perennial concern for the Christian faith. As the context changes, though, it must restate its positions, refine its arguments and adapt itself to new information53. The givenness of revelation necessitates an inquiry into the shifting grounds of acceptance. Macquarrie is adamant that the God presented in the Christian tradition and the ratiocination of modernity have overemphasized the transcendence of God (separation from world) and the persuasiveness of theistic proofs (rational demonstrations) leading to either a quasi-mythical God or an attenuated Deism54. To put the matter differently, it yields notions of the divine that are anthropomorphic, monarchical or inferential. Such existentially and intellectually inadequate formulations of the divine have resulted in a precipitous decline of belief in God in many advanced countries55. Macquarrie responds to this situation with the alternative of “dialectical theism” or panentheism. Dialectical theism deftly incorporates both religious existentialism (symbol) and metaphysical reflection (concept) into its methodology56. Avoiding in the process the dangers of just the subjective projection of feeling (idol) or just the objectification of abstraction (idea) of the divine mystery. Appropriate God-language requires that both the conditions of religious consciousness and intellectual credibility be satisfied57. This demands attending to the divine paradoxes encountered in the subjective and objective components of experience and revelation: transcendence and immanence, impassibility and passibility, eternity and temporality, being and nothing, one and many and knowability and incomprehensibility58. Both sides of these dialectical oppositions must be asserted. The dialectic also tries to reconcile the human tensions between faith and reason, tradition and novelty, authority and freedom59. Macquarrie thinks this is a more adequate way to think about the teachings of Christian revelation and the findings of science, because it presents the transcendent creator God as also a ubiquitous creative and guiding presence throughout creation. To Macquarrie, God-language is only appropriate when both religious consciousness and the intellect are 53. J. MACQUARRIE, In Search of Deity: An Essay in Dialectical Theism, New York, Crossroad, 1985, p. 4. 54. Ibid., p. 11. 55. Ibid., p. 14. 56. Ibid., p. 25. 57. Ibid., p. 28. 58. Ibid., pp. 172-182. 59. J. MACQUARRIE, Principles of Christian Theology, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 21977, p. vii.

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satisfied60. Dialectical theism, then, is a position between theism and pantheism, though, leaning more toward theism. It takes very seriously that God is not only “wholly transcendent” but also “wholly immanent”61. The immanent objective spirit discerned in and through all things has to be taken more fully into account. Macquarrie points out that this alternative tradition to mainline theism (Augustine and Aquinas) can be traced over the centuries through several thinkers: Plotinus, Dionysius the Areopagite, John Duns Scotus, Nicholas of Cusa, Leibniz, Hegel, Whitehead and Heidegger. For dialectical theism, the essence of reality is spirit, consciousness, value, reason and purpose. But this Being is only communicated through beings. In a real way, God is in the world and the world is in God. Therefore, God is the supremely active agent that is universally present and communicated to all people throughout creation62. Macquarrie’s new style of natural theology follows an existentialontological method by uniting the truth of the Christian message (divine initiative) with an interpretation for the contemporary generation (human quest)63. The wholly-other divine summons from beyond the human being is united with an account of the analogous continuity between divine and created being64. The existential aspect addresses the entire range of human experience and not just the rational contemplation of the objective cosmos. Macquarrie’s natural theology differs from rationalistic natural theologies by looking to uncover the foundations for all theological discourse and the assumptions behind any theological statement65. Since he wants to fuse secular thought and theology so as to outline the conditions of theology’s possibility, he crafts precise philosophical language and employs critical reason to show the intelligibility, coherence and the integration of divine revelation with human existence66. However, for the revelatory disclosure of the divine mystery, this enterprise requires an engagement in “primordial thinking”. Since revelation is the human experience of being grasped by Being and seeing things with depth or differently, rather than seeing the spiritual as an extra dimension added to everyday sense experience of the world, a meditative type of thinking is required to process the Gestalt of the experience. 60. MACQUARRIE, In Search of Deity (n. 53), p. 28. 61. Ibid., pp. 14-15. 62. Ibid., p. 11. 63. G. MORLEY, John Macquarrie’s Natural Theology: The Grace of Being, Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2003, p. 97. 64. Ibid., p. 3. 65. Ibid., pp. 100-101. 66. Ibid., p. 98.

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Primordial thinking waits and listens for the occurrence of being and shows how revelation can be located in the span of cognitive experience67. This new style of natural theology links with his understanding of the essence of theology proper. Theology is both a participation in and a critical reflection upon faith. It is a reflection on the faith of a specific historic community and brings this faith to a type of expression. It is done with an attitude of reverence and with acceptance of faith and revelation. Ultimately, this makes theology the divine science. However, it is an intellectual activity too that subjects the immediate experience of faith to critical, descriptive and interpretive reflection. This engagement with the social and natural sciences, by Macquarrie, shows that he rejects the adequacy of purely positivistic accounts of the religious phenomenon68. In other words, theology must work to demonstrate the internal coherence of the Christian faith and exhibit the external coherence of this faith with contemporary beliefs and attitudes. According to Macquarrie, faith can be intelligently held only if these tasks are accomplished69. The acknowledgment of such cultural factors is unavoidable70. The theologian is always consciously or unconsciously influenced by the Zeitgeist. In the end, his natural theology is not separated from religious interests, but since it is to be a “public and popular” conversation about infinite being, it cannot rest on religious tradition or authority alone71. Finally, it is important to note that this version of dialectical theism is thoroughly Christian in method and form. It is grounded in the revelation of the person of Jesus Christ. According to Macquarrie, Christ is the symbol of God and the paradigmatic revelation for Christianity72. Revelation has a “gift-like” character as the holy appears in history. The revelation of the Gospel was a new and decisive unveiling of the one holy mystery of divine activity: creation, reconciliation, and consummation73. The action of the Logos was publically and definitively attested in the life and teaching of Christ. Macquarrie says that humanity needed this historically concretized divine manifestation so as to overcome the otherwise ambiguous nature of the divine presence in the world. In other words, this special “revelatory” event was required to garner the appropriate spiritual attention and elicit the mandatory “attitude of faith”: 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

MACQUARRIE, Principles of Christian Theology (n. 59), p. 94. MORLEY, John Macquarrie’s Natural Theology (n. 63), pp. 98-99. MACQUARRIE, Principles of Christian Theology (n. 59), p. v. Ibid., p. 15. MACQUARRIE, In Search of Deity (n. 53), pp. 12-13. Ibid., p. 271. Ibid., p. 269.

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acceptance, commitment, responsibility and worship. The incarnation and the Cross elicited the attitude of faith by revealing the depth of the divine love through humility, possibility and involvement with creation74. Therefore, for Macquarrie, any sophisticated form of natural theology must come after the formulation of the christological doctrinal tradition. This is true even if natural theology articulates general beliefs that are logically prior to the concrete formulations, such as, the sense that the world points beyond itself to a transcendent source or the triadic nature of God glimpsed by some of the philosophers of the panentheism tradition: primordial being (ineffable and incomprehensible source), expressive being (rational and intelligent order of creation) and unitive being (everything returns to source for fulfillment)75. However, there is an abstractness and generalization in this philosophical theology that only reaches the level of probability. It pales in comparison to the spiritual, liturgical, ecclesiastical and soteriological dimensions of the historical religions. Natural theology, then, seeks embodiment or incarnation in a particular manifestation of the divine. As such, natural theologies can never replace concrete theologies, but they can help the faithful to have a more critical and secure grasp of their faith commitments. This can make the belief in the triune God and incarnation, which are somewhat paradoxical and initially implausible, more accessible and philosophically reasonable76. Therefore, natural theology (philosophy) is to be of service in the expression of a coherent, intelligent and integrated faith to the secular culture, but never the substitution or preliminary foundation for that faith. III. POSTMODERNITY AND THE NEW CONTEXT FOR NATURAL THEOLOGY Postmodernism is marked by a rejection of the universal claims of metaphysics and an incredulity toward meta-narratives. Totalistic claims are rejected as exclusionary devices, whether theological, philosophical, historical or economic in form. This postmodern thinking is based on the assumption that reality can never be comprehended in neutral, objective or singular ways. These types of theories show that sense data can never support just one specific worldview or big story. Rather, thinking is better 74. Ibid., p. 228. 75. Ibid., p. 175. 76. Ibid., pp. 239-240.

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understood as an event of the mind that constructs reality through language and interpretation77. Contrary to the absolute claims of modernity, knowledge is presented as relative, subjective and fallible. This relativism of viewpoint is borne from a deep appreciation of the multiplicity of discourses and the recognition of the unavoidability of linguisticality, historicity, contingency and finitude. Instead of generalizations, postmodern thought gives close reading to the minute details of texts and events78. There is a sensitivity to “differences” as it tries to uncover or recover dimensions and messages that were neglected or erased in modern accounts. In the end, there is no absolute certainty and no state of affairs is permanent79. And there is no definite meaning in any texts; there are only different renderings that will vary according to contextual particularities. These postmodern insights cut across all disciplines. The groundbreaking work of Thomas Kuhn showed that this even applies to science. After reviewing the history of scientific breakthroughs, he demonstrated that scientist theory is not the product of passive and dispassionate recording of information gleaned from observation and experiment. For a paradigm shift to happen, such as, Ptolemaic to Copernican, one has to step outside the sanctioned methodology so as to glimpse what has been missed in the overarching framework. This is an active intellectual project based on many hunches, intuitions and strong feelings wherein widely accepted information is reconfigured through study of anomalies or exceptions within general rules80. In the postmodern context, then, given the central role of language and tradition, “seeing” is not a matter of just staring at things as given objects. It is more a matter of “seeing-as” or seeing something from a certain perspective and according to the constitution of the particular viewer. Science is now categorized as just one language game (rule-governed activity) among many: art, philosophy, politics, literature and religion81. Modernism was aligned with secularism because of the divorce of faith and reason. Religion and theology were impossible, as public discourse, because of the modern scientific criteria of empirical, rational and historical verifiability82. But postmodernism is post-secular and provides an opportunity for the “return of the theological”. According to John Caputo, there is a new relationship between faith and 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

K. ARMSTRONG, The Case for God, New York, Anchor Books, 2010, p. 311. CAPUTO, Philosophy and Theology (n. 32), p. 50. ARMSTRONG, The Case for God (n. 77), pp. 314-315. CAPUTO, Philosophy and Theology (n. 32), pp. 47-48. Ibid., p. 52. ARMSTRONG, The Case for God (n. 77), p. xv.

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reason83. Reason is now perceived as limited and proceeds by a type of faith (assumptions and presuppositions) and science is also tentative about some conclusions because revisions are always a possibility. Consequently, if there is an irreducibility to all things, then, all disciplines possess unique insight and an irreplaceable perspective on the world. Theology is publically possible, again, as the language-game that speaks about the religious forms of life84. Theology is the thinking, clarifying, conceptualizing and updating of the shared belief of the communities of faith. But religion needs theology, just as theology needs philosophy, if the intellectual contribution of faith is to exceed just repeating what revelation attests85. Theology will make truth claims based on revelation. However, religious language is true because it is meaningful, not because it delivers facts86. There is no attempt at rational proof when it comes to questions about the divine existence or nature. Instead, postmodernism argues from the phenomenology of religious experience. Phenomenology “verifies” faith by showing the deep, meaningful and coherent connection between religious experience and truth (not knowledge per se) and the physical world and human existence87. As relates to natural theology, in particular, one can no longer claim to “read” the divine from the world. Any conjunction of nature and divinity is categorized as naïve in postmodernism. The filters of language and culture make grand claims about nature, essence and reality highly problematic88. Instead, postmodern natural theology will be more subtle than the modern approach of direct or unmediated appeals to nature89. It will proceed by trying to overcome the divides of science-culture, reason-faith, and nature-grace as it searches for newer, deeper and more intricate models of sublime communion between the creator and creation. The postmodern context requires a reassessment of the robust characterization of reason in the teaching of the First Vatican Council and the idea that God can be known with certainty from creation (Rom 1,20). This is a perennial issue for natural theology. Vatican I is part of the living tradition of the Catholic Church and is “harmonious” in many ways with 83. Ibid., pp. 56-57. 84. Ibid., p. 53. 85. Ibid., p. 14. 86. C.M. GESCHWANDTNER, Postmodern Apologetics? Arguments for God in Contemporary Philosophy, New York, Fordham University Press, 2013, p. 210. 87. Ibid., p. 219. 88. C. CROCKETT, Postmodernism and Natural Theology, in R.R. MANNING (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology, New York, Oxford University Press, 2015, 340-353, p. 340. 89. Ibid., p. 345.

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the ecumenically minded Vatican II (1962-1965). There are three points that should be made for the contemporary understanding of this teaching. The first point is that the Council never taught that the existence of God can be “rationally demonstrated” through argumentation. It is a common misperception that a philosophical foundation for faith was promulgated. It only stated that God “can” be known from the world, as a human capacity, and left open whether it had ever been actually achieved. This point has been borne out by the recent work of Fergus Kerr. He has shown that it was the anti-modernist oath (1910) that added the gloss that natural reason can demonstrably prove the existence of God by reasoning – from effects to cause90. This interpretation later became ensconced in natural theology courses for Catholic seminary students. Seminarians were instructed that reason could “infer” the existence of God from the world as the unmoved mover, uncaused cause and the absolutely necessary being. This demonstration was to be carried out through cosmological (a posteriori) proofs91. Kerr’s conclusion is that the general teaching of the Council was placed into a rationalistic and neo-scholastic framework which was not the original intention of the Council. All the Council really wanted to state was that the human being has a “natural capacity” for attaining moral and religious truths through the use of reason92. According to Kerr, “we have to distinguish between the knowledge of God’s existing, which is spontaneous and universal and the knowledge of God’s existence (divine nature), which is reflective or scientific”93. Following Aquinas, one could add that any knowledge about God through reason would only be achieved by a few and only after much time and never in an unadulterated form94. Relatedly, one should not assume that the Catholic doctrine of the divine attributes (omnipotent, eternal, immense, infinite, etc.), which are outlined in chapter one, fall within the purview of rational accessibility. To conclude that was the intention of the Council is to make an “overreaching claim”, because the point is never clarified one way or the other in the documents95.

90. F. KERR, Knowing God by Reason Alone: What Vatican I Never Said, in New Blackfriars 91 (2010) 215-228, p. 218. 91. Ibid., p. 219. 92. Ibid., pp. 221-222. 93. Ibid., p. 224. 94. ALLEN, A Commentary on the First Vatican Council’s Dei Filius (n. 11), pp. 146147. 95. Ibid., p. 143.

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The second point is that Vatican I presents a symbiotic relationship between “faith and reason” and “nature and grace”. The Council judiciously avoids the notion of “pure nature” and leaves open whether that is even a possibility96. Consequently, one needs to see this natural knowledge of God in the broader context of faith, so as to facilitate a more balanced reading of the doctrine. The textual context of the doctrine is revealing, specifically, the immediately preceding and succeeding chapters. As stated above, chapter one summarizes the Catholic belief about the divine essence. But the summary equally acknowledges the unknowability of the divine essence: incomprehensibility and ineffability. This shows that there are definite limits to the doctrine of the knowability of God and therefore it should not be pushed too far. Additionally, chapter three teaches that faith is a supernatural virtue bestowed by grace. Faith creates an openness to receive revelation and the Holy Spirit offers internal testimony. The uncreated truth is finally accepted, not because of any intrinsic truth or rationally compelling reasons, but because of the sublime authority of the divine source. The Council, then, is opposed to the claim that reason is ever fully and sufficiently autonomous97. Since the world has a divine origination and is imbued by the Word and Spirit, as well as redeemed by the Son of God and graced by the universal divine summons to salvation, one is left to wonder if anything is strictly natural anyway98. The third point addresses the ongoing ecclesial reception of this teaching. According to Kerr, one official reception of this Vatican I teaching is provided in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is sensitive to the postmodern condition and the weaker notion of reason. Here the contemporary listener is told that the quest for God is never simple. God can easily be forgotten and regularly overlooked amidst the hustle and bustle of daily existence. However, the search for the divine is an important part of human nature and the life of faith. Religious life has a pilgrimage quality. This quest includes intellectual effort, but it must also incorporate moral and spiritual formation, as well as ecclesial guidance gained through Church membership99. Relatedly, the Catechism offers a broad and multifaceted understanding of nature. The approach to natural revelation must include an analysis of the physical world and its structural design. A general understanding of the current findings of cosmology and 96. KÜNG, Does God Exist? (n. 4), p. 519. 97. ALLEN, A Commentary on the First Vatican Council’s Dei Filius (n. 11), p. 148. 98. G. O’COLLINS, Rethinking Fundamental Theology: Toward a New Fundamental Theology, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 15. 99. KERR, Knowing God by Reason Alone (n. 90), p. 225.

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evolution generates insights about the creator. Yet nature must also include the inner analysis of the human being in terms of the movements of freedom, conscience and the immortal longings for truth, beauty, happiness and the infinite100. Karl Barth is also an important part of this postmodern conversation about natural theology. As the relentless critic of the metaphysics of modernity, his neo-orthodox response made him the main progenitor of the postmodern paradigm for theology101. He reached back to scriptural, patristic, medieval and reformed traditions for his theological resources. Anselm (“I believe that I may understand”) was particularly inspirational in the formation of his neo-orthodox alternative to modern realism. Modern realism is based on personal experience, complete presence and sense-data. But realism overlooks the relativism of perspective and the constructive nature of consciousness and language. It turns the human observer into God. Instead, Barth espouses “theological realism” and philosophical skepticism102. As opposed to the liberal tendencies to couch Christian doctrine in anthropological, historical and universal rational categories, Barth posits a christological concentration with Christ as the sole source of salvation, revelation and truth. He believes that true knowledge of the world and the human being has to be given through the revelation of Christ. Barth ridicules the idea of objectivity gained through reason alone. His theological realism (or philosophical non-realism) means that Christ is the ontic and noetic possibility for any true and objective knowledge of human beings and the world. Only God sees things as they are – objectively. Human perception is tragically marred by finitude and sinfulness. The Christian scriptures are the antidote and authoritative repository of the divine wisdom as well as the only means by which to view rightly created things. For Barth, these sacred texts are not just historical and literary productions, but divinely inspired documents that mediate the encounter with God – the “totally other”103. Barth’s major problem with natural theology, then, is that it has lost the otherness of God and ignored the chasm separating God and humanity. For Barth, the scholastic “analogy of being” is really the univocity of being with supernatural revelation and natural knowledge being mistakenly equated. He mightily challenges this flattening of all differences between 100. Ibid., p. 226. 101. KÜNG, Theology for the Third Millennium (n. 27), pp. 271-272. 102. G. WARD, Barth, Modernity and Postmodernity, in J. WEBSTER (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, 274-295, p. 281. 103. KÜNG, Theology for the Third Millennium (n. 27), p. 274.

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God and world, God and the human being. This erasing of the ontological difference is clearly displayed in the immanentism and monism of secular and nihilistic modernity. The divine interruption of the incarnation in history reestablishes difference, alterity, otherness and transcendence104. In the end, the divinely “repressed other” of Christianity is restored by Barth to modernity105. Barth brings orthodox theology back to the (post)modern public square – but on its own evangelical terms. This Christian theology is Christocentric and Theocentric. And it can never be just an intellectual exercise. The human being is called to penance, conversion and faith with salvation hanging in the balance. As the incarnate Logos, Jesus Christ is the decisive criterion for all discourse about God and human beings. Instead of philosophical first principles, theology must be uncompromisingly committed to revelation and tradition106. According to Hans Küng, for Catholics and Protestants, “even today in theology we must cling firmly to the broad intentions of Karl Barth”107. Another scholar has said that the enduring legacy of Barth is his Anselmianism. In other words theology must begin with revelation and only afterwards inquire as to what is ontologically, hermeneutically, veridically, linguistically, and correlationally acceptable or possible108. However, while most theologians affirm Barth about the indispensability of revelation, for faith and theology, they think his method has exaggerated the place of revelation for human reflection and existence. His rejection of any anthropological insight ends in a form of “supernaturalism” or revelational positivism. Moreover, Barth absolutizes Christianity’s revelation while giving meager attention to the divine manifestations in culture, philosophy and history. This is a one-sided dialectic of transcendence109. In essence, nature has been collapsed into grace and reason has been usurped by faith. Many scholars feel this has led to the ghettoizing of theology, since doctrine is presented as beyond critical assessment, only concerned with its own creed, and disinterested in engaging other disciplines110. Dualism is the cornerstone of this theological method: God/world, grace/nature and

104. WARD, Barth, Modernity and Postmodernity (n. 102), p. 284. 105. Ibid., p. 278. 106. MCGRATH, Re-Imagining Nature (n. 36), p. 134. 107. KÜNG, Theology for the Third Millennium (n. 27), pp. 274-275. 108. T. GUARINO, Foundations of Systematic Theology, New York, T&T Clark, 2005, p. 223. 109. G. DORIEN, The Barthian Revolt in Modern Theology: Theology without Weapons, Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox, 2000, p. 132. 110. Ibid., pp. 11, 134.

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revelation/reason. And Barth leaves it to the Holy Spirit to “somehow” mysteriously provide infused understanding. In the final analysis, the Christian faith is uncompromisingly asserted (not defended) with only self-justifying modes of arguments brought to bear to understand the faith. Barth uncompromisingly states that the distinctiveness of Protestantism resides in this rejection of all natural knowledge of God111. This became a major obstacle for ecumenical theology in the twentieth century. However, Protestant scholars are beginning to seriously question this claim. Contrary to Barth’s version of Reformed history, there appears to be a consistent history of endorsement of natural theology in Protestant theology from the beginning112. Historical studies show that some Reformers did accept the project of natural theology, while not along the lines of modern philosophical foundationalism, when it stems from dogmatic theology and functions according to Christian presuppositions113. The texts of the Reformer John Calvin are central to this “final corrective” to the Barthian total rejection of natural theology114. Calvin does accept the existence of a limited, but corrupt, extra-biblical knowledge of the Creator. Natural theology is presented as an objectively knowable and ultimately culpable knowledge of God that may be universally perceived. He even uses design arguments about the complexity of the universe and the intricacies of human anatomy to lend credence to the biblical teaching about signs of the divine creator115. Following some Reformers, then, natural theology is best understood as a form of revealed theology since neither of them are a simple matter of human accomplishment116. This puts natural theology legitimately back on the Protestant theological agenda. According to Alister McGrath, the emerging consensus with Protestant theology since about 1990 is that “natural theology”, when rightly understood, must be considered an integral part of Christian theology117.

111. R. MANNING, Protestant Perspectives on Natural Theology, in ID. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology (n. 88), 197-212, p. 198. 112. Ibid., p. 200. 113. See K.S. OLIPHINT, Is There a Reformed Objection to Natural Theology?, in Westminster Theological Journal 74 (2012) 169-203. 114. MANNING, Protestant Perspectives on Natural Theology (n. 111), p. 204. 115. Ibid., pp. 202-203. 116. Ibid., p. 201. See R.A. MULLER, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, 4 vols., Grand Rapids, MI, Baker Academic, 2003. 117. MCGRATH, Re-Imagining Nature (n. 36), pp. 170-171.

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IV. CONCLUSION This paper has been an analysis of the question of Christian natural theology in terms of the First Vatican Council and Karl Barth. The dialogue also engaged the important (post)modern work of the Catholic theologian, Walter Kasper, and the Anglican theologian, John Macquarie. The goal was to move “beyond polemics” on this challenging question. The study examined how postmodern theology has generated new opportunities for the “return” of natural theology. The paper also showed, through historical studies and current theological research, how particular interpretations of Vatican I and Karl Barth can enhance or stymy this process. In the end, Christian natural theology can no longer proceed using the philosophy of religion as the rational (and faithless) prolegomena for revelation. Instead, natural theology must be founded and guided by faith, revelation and the sacramental worldview: “The heavens proclaim the glory of God”. This grounding beckons the human intellectual and spiritual search to understand more deeply this Triune and Creator God. This new approach will follow thicker forms of natural theology that engage reason, science, experience, faith, culture, and the doctrinal, sacramental and ecclesial traditions. It will utilize theological models of participation that transcend mere reason. Ultimately, natural theology will be of service to belief by showing the coherence of Christianity with contemporary experiences through the various “natural access points for faith”, as demonstrated by Kasper and Macquarrie. St. John’s University St. Augustine Hall Queens Room 2-010 Queens, NY 718-990-7396 USA [email protected]

Craig A. BARON

II KEY TENSIONS THEN AND NOW JUSTIFICATION, GRACE, AND SACRAMENTS

DOING JUSTICE TO JUSTIFICATION HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS ON A DECISIVE CONTROVERSY OF THE REFORMATION ERA

I. INTRODUCTION – LUTHER ON JUSTIFICATION In 1536, Elector Johann Friedrich of Saxony asked Martin Luther (1483-1546), who was then suffering from serious illness, to write a summary of his doctrine for presentation to the planned General Council, which had been convoked by Pope Paul III at Mantua for 23 May 1537. The Schmalcaldic League of Protestant princes and cities did not see the need for another confession in addition to the Augsburg Confession. Moreover, the council was postponed until the Council of Trent gathered. But Luther’s so-called Smalcald Articles became popular and were later incorporated in the Lutheran Book of Concord (1580). Famously, the Wittenberg Reformer emphasized as “the first and chief article” justification of the sinner by faith alone, based on the work of Christ. Here is the first and chief article: That Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, “was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4[,25]); and he alone is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1[,29]); and “the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isa. 53[,6]); furthermore, “All have sinned”, and “they are now justified without merit by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus … by his blood” (Rom. 3[,23-25]). Now because this must be believed and may not be obtained or grasped otherwise with any work, law, or merit, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us, as St. Paul says in Rom 3[,28.26]: “For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law”; and also, “that he God alone is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus”. Nothing in this article can be conceded or given up, even if heaven and earth or whatever is transitory passed away. … On this article stands all that we teach and practice against the pope, the devil, and the world…1.

1. The Smalcald Articles, art. 2, par. 1, in R. KOLB – T.J. WENGERT (eds.), The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 2000, p. 301.

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This article can be summarized by using the so-called “exclusive particles”: It is Christ alone who effectuates salvation for human beings which can be attained only by divine grace and only through faith: solus Christus, sola gratia, sola fide. Justification and the saving act of Christ are closely linked together. We also can observe that Luther based this article on quotations from Scripture. Moreover, he made clear, in polemical language, that this article of faith was of vital importance for Christian faith. One year before his death, Luther included a famous autobiographical note in the preface to an edition of his Latin writings, published in 1545. There he described how he almost thirty years earlier had meditated day and night on the meaning of Rom 1,17 and suddenly discovered that Paul spoke about a passive justice “by which the merciful God justifies us by faith”2. This so-called Turmerlebnis or “tower experience” became during the last century in the school of Karl Holl the symbol of the pivotal breakthrough of the Reformation after the allegedly dark era of the Middle Ages. Already Hegel had marked the Reformation as “the all-illuminating sun, which follows that daybreak at the end of the Middle Ages”3. It has, however, turned out to be rather difficult to trace the date of such a breakthrough in Luther’s early writings. Instead, there is ample evidence for a gradual development that to some extent fits the context of an Augustinian friar and professor of biblical theology in the earlysixteenth century. As scholars such as Volker Leppin and Wolfgang Thönissen have shown, Luther’s soteriological insights were influenced by his confessor Johann von Staupitz and rooted in monastic-mystical piety of medieval theologians such as Bonaventure, Bernard of Clairvaux and Johannes Tauler, not to mention the strong influence of Augustine4.

2. M. LUTHER, Luther’s Works, American Edition, ed. J. PELIKAN – H.T. LEHMANN, 55 vols., St. Louis, MO, Concordia; Philadelphia, PA, Fortress, 1995-1986, vol. 34, p. 337; WA 54, p. 186. 3. G.W.F. HEGEL, Sämtliche Werke: Jubiläumsausgabe in 20 Bänden, ed. H. GLOCKNER, Stuttgart – Bad Cannstatt, Frommann, 1965-1965, vol. 11, p. 519, as quoted and translated by G. EBELING, Luther and the Beginning of the Modern Age, in H.A. OBERMAN (ed.), Luther and the Dawn of the Modern Era: Papers for the Fourth International Congress for Luther Research (Studies in the History of Christian Thought, 8), Leiden, Brill, 1974, 11-39, p. 11. 4. V. LEPPIN, Luther’s Roots in Monastic-Mystical Piety, in R. KOLB – I. DINGEL – L. BATKA (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther’s Theology, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, 49-61; ID., Die fremde Reformation: Luthers mystische Wurzeln, München, Beck, 2016; W. THÖNISSEN, Martin Luther: Katholik und Reformator, Leipzig, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt; Paderborn, Bonifatius, 2017.

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Moreover, the so-called “New Finnish Interpretation” has pointed out that salvation was for Luther not purely extrinsic or forensic but also included a real-ontic union of the believer with Christ. We should not read Luther “under the spell of neo-Kantian presuppositions” which do not allow for ontological participation5. Likewise, in different ways, scholars such as Heiko Oberman, Otto-Hermann Pesch and Theodor Dieter have argued that Luther’s harsh criticism of scholastic soteriology especially targeted the nominalist theologian Gabriel Biel (ca. 14151495) and did not necessarily hit the actual teaching of Thomas Aquinas and, I would add, that of John Duns Scotus6. Of course, we should not downplay the significance of Luther’s renewed understanding of justification. But it is important to note that initially Luther and the early Reformers did not see it as a breaking point with the Catholic Church as such. In this article it is argued that in the early modern period both Protestant and Catholic theologians tried to do justice to justification in diverging ways. First, the debates on justification at the Diet of Augsburg (1530) will be briefly discussed. Next, it will be shown how Catholics and Protestants discussed the doctrine of justification at the Colloquy of Worms (1540/1541) and how they reached a remarkable agreement on this doctrine at the Colloquy of Regensburg (1541). After that, the major decisions taken on the doctrine of justification at the Council of Trent (1546/1547) will be explained. Subsequently, it will be briefly pointed out how the debates after Trent on justification and especially grace and free will transcended the Catholic-Protestant divide. The article closes with some concluding reflections.

5. C.E. BRAATEN – R.W. JENSON (eds.), Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1998, p. viii; cf. T. MANNERMAA, Christ Present in Faith: Luther’s View of Justification, ed. K.I. STJERNA, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 2005. 6. H.A. OBERMAN, The Dawn of the Reformation: Essays in Medieval and Early Reformation Thought, Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1986; O.H. PESCH, Martin Luther, Thomas von Aquin und die reformatorische Kritik an der Scholastik: Zur Geschichte und Wirkungsgeschichte eines Mißverständnisses mit weltgeschichtlichen Folgen (Joachim Jungius-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften), Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994; T. DIETER, Der junge Luther und Aristoteles: Eine historisch-systematische Untersuchung zum Verhältnis von Theologie und Philosophie (Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann, 105), Berlin, De Gruyter, 2001. See for Duns Scotus A. VOS et al., Duns Scotus on Divine Love: Texts and Commentary on Goodness and Freedom, God and Humans, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2003, pp. 98-129; cf. W. DETTLOFF, Die Lehre von der acceptatio divina bei Johannes Duns Scotus: mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Rechtfertigungslehre (Franciskanische Forschungen, 10), Werl, Coelde, 1954.

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II. THE DIET OF AUGSBURG (1530) – MELANCHTHON ON JUSTIFICATION When Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560) as the spokesman for Protestant theologians presented on 25 June 1530 the Confessio Augustana to the Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg, he insisted that there was nothing in its doctrinal articles “that departs from the Scriptures or the Catholic church, or from the Roman church” as far as it was known from the writings of the Fathers. According to him, the whole dispute concerned “a few specific abuses”7. The Confutation of the Augsburg Confession of the Catholic party was less optimistic; its final version was read at the Diet on 3 August 1530. Still, this Confutatio, mainly written by Johann Eck (1468-1543), explicitly approved 15 of the 21 doctrinal articles, most of them without qualifications. The major differences concerned the doctrines of original sin, justification, and the Church. Interestingly, the articles approved by the Confutatio included the article on free will of the Augsburg Confession8. Although the Confutatio did not explicitly approve the fourth article on justification of the Augsburg Confession, it did not clearly reject it either. It probably helped that the Augsburg Confession carefully combined the Lutheran emphasis on imputed righteousness with the traditional concern for inherent righteousness and thus the process of effective transformation: Furthermore, it is taught that we cannot obtain forgiveness of sin and righteousness before God through our merits, works, or satisfactions, but that we receive forgiveness of sin and become righteous before God out of grace for Christ’s sake through faith when we believe that Christ has suffered for us and that for his sake our sin is forgiven and righteousness and eternal life are given to us. For God will regard and reckon this faith as righteousness in his sight, as St Paul says in Romans 3[:21-26] and 4[:5]9.

In its lengthy comment on this article, the Confutatio avoided mentioning the concept of justification, while accepting the Protestant rejection of the Pelagian position that humans can earn eternal life by their own powers with divine grace. But then it declared that “to reject human 7. The Augsburg Confession, conclusion of part one, Latin text, in KOLB – WENGERT, The Book of Concord (n. 1), p. 59. 8. The Confutation of the Augsburg Confession, trans. M.D. TRANVIK, in R. KOLB – J.A. NESTINGEN (eds.), Sources and Contexts of the Book of Concord, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 2001, 106-139; Corpus Reformatorum [CR] 27, pp. 82-183. I quote from the final version of the Confutatio. 9. The Augsburg Confession, art. 4, par. 1-2, in KOLB – WENGERT, The Book of Concord (n. 1), pp. 38, 40.

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merit, which is acquired through the assistance of divine grace, is to agree with the Manichaeans and not the catholic church”10. Thus, the Confutatio in fact maintained the concept of condign merit (meritum de condigno): “All Catholics admit that our works of themselves have no merit but God’s grace makes them worthy to earn eternal life”11. The most critical remark concerning the doctrine of justification of the Augsburg Confession, though, may be found in the comments on the sixth article, where the Catholic party demurs that the Protestants “attribute to justification by faith alone that which is wholly opposed to evangelical truth”12. Here, the Confutatio seemingly understood the Protestant sola fide as completely detaching good works from the Gospel. Before the Confutatio, Melanchthon had written on 4 July 1530 to the papal legate Lorenzo Campeggio: “Not one single dogma separates us from the Roman Church”13. The Confutatio and especially the failure of the Diet cast a dark shadow on this judgment, as later the Protestant Apology would do as well. Still, the negotiations in August 1530 of the Committee of Fourteen, which included both Melanchthon and Eck, achieved impressive results, including far-reaching agreements on the doctrine of justification14.

10. KOLB – NESTINGEN, Sources (n. 8), p. 108; CR 27, p. 93. 11. KOLB – NESTINGEN, Sources (n. 8), p. 109; CR 27, p. 95: “Attamen omnes catholici fatentur, opera nostra ex se nullius esse meriti; sed gratia Dei facit, illa digna esse vita aeterna”. In late medieval Scholasticism a distinction was made between a full merit, the meritum de condigno, and a merit in a weaker sense, the meritum de congruo. The merit de congruo was usually seen as proportionate to what people achieved by doing their best (facere quod in se est), which was not truly deserving of grace, although they would receive grace by the mere generosity of God. The merit de condigno, in contrast, referred to a human act, performed in the state of grace, which was worthy of acceptance by God and deserved the gift of salvation. Not all medieval and early modern writers understood this distinction in the same way; cf. OBERMAN, The Dawn of the Reformation (n. 6), pp. 84-103, 204-233. 12. KOLB – NESTINGEN, Sources (n. 8), pp. 109-110; CR 27, p. 99: “Quod vero in eodem articulo iustificationem soli fidei tribuunt, ex diametro pugnat cum evangelica veritate, opera non excludente”. Cf. also the differences concerning the articles 12 and 20 of the Augsburg Confession. 13. CR 2, p. 170: “Dogma nullum habemus diversum ab Ecclesia Romana … Cum auten concordia facile possit constitui, si aequitas vestra paucis in rebus conniveat…”. 14. V. PFNÜR, Die Einigung in der Rechtfertigungslehre bei den Religionsverhandlungen auf dem Reichstag zu Augsburg 1530, in E. ISERLOH – B. HALLENSLEBEN (eds.), Confessio Augustana und Confutatio: Der Augsburger Reichstag 1530 und die Einheit der Kirche (Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, 118), Münster, Aschendorff, 1980, 346-374, pp. 359-374; cf. W. JANSSEN, “Wir sind zum wechselseitigen Gespräch geboren”: Philipp Melanchthon und die Reichsreligionsgespräche von 1540/41 (Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, 98), Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009, pp. 19-48.

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III. THE COLLOQUY OF WORMS (1540/1541) Although the two parties on some important points came close to each other, the Diet of Augsburg finally failed. The Protestant princes and cities allied themselves with the Schmalkaldic League, which became increasingly powerful. Because of the danger of civil war and the need to form a common defence against the Turkish threat, a series of colloquies was held in order to reconcile the two religious sides. The most significant were those at Worms and especially at Regensburg in 1540 and 154115. At Worms, each side had eleven votes and at most three participants per vote. The Protestant delegates included, among others, Philip Melanchthon from Wittenberg and Martin Bucer (1491-1551) and John Calvin (1509-1564), both from Strasbourg at this time. Among the Catholic delegates were Julius Pflug from Naumburg (1499-1564), Johann Gropper (1503-1559) from Cologne, and Johann Eck from Ingolstadt. The colloquy started with delay in November 1540; in the meanwhile, all Protestant delegates, including Calvin, had agreed that 15. The acts of the colloquies at Hanau, Worms and Regensburg are edited in K. GANZER (ed.), Akten der deutschen Reichsreligionsgespräche im 16. Jahrhundert, 3 vols., Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000-2007; cf. W.H. NEUSER (ed.), Die Vorbereitung der Religionsgespräche von Worms und Regensburg: 1540/41 (Texte zur Geschichte der evangelischen Theologie, 4), Neukirchen-Vluyn, Neukirchener Verlag, 1974; C. AUGUSTIJN – M. DE KROON (eds.), Religionsgespräche (1539-1541) (Martin Bucers Deutsche Schriften, 9/1), Gütersloh, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1995; C. AUGUSTIJN (ed.), Religionsgespräche (1541-1542) (Martin Bucers Deutsche Schriften, 9/2), Gütersloh, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2007. Cf. also G. MÜLLER (ed.), Die Religionsgespräche der Reformationszeit (Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte, 191), Gütersloh, Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, 1980; A. LEXUTT, Rechtfertigung im Gespräch: Das Rechtfertigungsverständnis in den Religionsgesprächen von Hagenau, Worms und Regensburg 1540/41 (Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, 64), Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996; A.N.S. LANE, Justification by Faith in Catholic-Protestant Dialogue: An Evangelical Assessment, London, T&T Clark, 2002, pp. 46-60; JANSSEN, Melanchthon und die Religionsgespräche (n. 14); V. ORTMANN, Reformation und Einheit der Kirche: Martin Bucers Einigungsbemühungen bei den Religionsgesprächen in Leipzig, Hagenau, Worms und Regensburg 1539-1541 (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte, 185), Mainz, von Zabern, 2001; J.M. STOLK, Johannes Calvijn en de godsdienstgesprekken tussen rooms-katholieken en protestanten in Hagenau, Worms en Regensburg (1540-1541) (Theologie en geschiedenis), Kampen, Kok, 2004; B. LUGIOYO, Martin Bucer’s Doctrine of Justification: Reformation Theology and Early Modern Irenicism (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 135-204; S. SCHULTHEIS, Die Verhandlungen über das Abendmahl und die übrigen Sakramente auf dem Religionsgespräch in Regensburg 1541 (Forschungen zur Kirchenund Dogmengeschichte, 102), Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012; I. DINGEL – V. LEPPIN – K. PAASCH (eds.), Zwischen theologischem Dissens und politischer Duldung: Religionsgespräche in der Frühen Neuzeit, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, forthcoming.

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they would base themselves on the Confessio Augustana Variata16. Calvin emphasized that justification was not related to historical faith but rather to fiducia, trust in Christ’s promise. He also allowed for a iustitia operum, righteousness of works, albeit subordinated to iustitia fidei, righteousness of faith17. In contrast to the Protestant delegates, the Catholic delegates were divided among each other and unable to formulate a response to the Protestants. Thus, the imperial chancellor took measures: first, he secretly asked Bucer and Gropper to write a document that would be used for further negotiations. Gropper was an Erasmian humanist and Catholic reformer who was convinced that the converted Christian constantly depended on the mercy of God18. Bucer was a former Dominican friar who sincerely believed in the possibility of union19. Whereas for Bucer justification by faith was the chief doctrine, which established the Church, for Gropper the Church and its sacraments formed the locus of justification20. Together they drafted a series of articles, the so-called “Worms Book”21, which was partly based on Gropper’s Enchiridion christianae institutionis (1538)22. The second measure of the chancellor was that Eck and Melanchthon should discuss the doctrine of original sin. It is remarkable that, after lengthy discussions, they reached full agreement and defined original sin as “the lack of original righteousness connected with concupiscence”. This formula combined the Anselmian understanding of peccatum originale as primarily a “lack of original righteousness” (followed by Duns Scotus, William van Ockham and Gabriel Biel) with the Augustinian understanding as “concupiscence” in the sense of a disordered desire that turns humans away from God (followed by Petrus Lombardus), thus 16. LEXUTT, Rechtfertigung (n. 15), pp. 38-43, 112-177; GANZER, Akten (n. 15), vol. 1/1, pp. xv-xvii. 17. See the protocol of Wolfgang Musculus for 9 November 1540 in NEUSER, Die Vorbereitung der Religionsgespräche (n. 15), pp. 129-131; cf. STOLK, Calvijn en de godsdienstgesprekken (n. 15), pp. 188-191. 18. See for Gropper LUGIOYO, Bucer’s Doctrine of Justification (n. 15), pp. 103-133. 19. See for Bucer ibid., pp. 15-102; ORTMANN, Reformation und Einheit der Kirche (n. 15). 20. LUGIOYO, Bucer’s Doctrine of Justification (n. 15), pp. 104-105. 21. AUGUSTIJN – DE KROON, Religionsgespräche (1539-1541) (n. 15), pp. 323-483; cf. the detailed, albeit one-sided, discussion by LEXUTT, Rechtfertigung (n. 15), pp. 177235. 22. Cf. R. BRAUNISCH, Die Theologie der Rechtfertigung im Enchiridion 1538 des Johannes Gropper: Sein kritischer Dialog mit Philipp Melanchthon (Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, 109), Münster, Aschendorff, 1974; LUGIOYO, Bucer’s Doctrine of Justification (n. 15), pp. 103-133.

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mirroring the positions of Alexander of Hales, Bonaventura, and Thomas Aquinas23. Further negotiations were deferred to the upcoming Diet of Regensburg. IV. THE COLLOQUY OF REGENSBURG (1541) On 5 April 1541, the colloquy continued at the Diet of Regensburg after the grand opening by Charles V24. Later he announced the names of the debaters: Pflug, Eck, and Gropper from the Catholic side, and Melanchthon, Bucer, and Johann Pistorius the Elder from the Protestant side25. Calvin and Albert Pighius were present as observers26. Cardinal Gasparo Contarini (1483-1542) was appointed papal legate and played a major role during the colloquy. He was a leading member of the spirituali, an Erasmian reforming group in Italy27. In 1511, his autobiographical writing about his recent conversion experience was strikingly similar to Luther’s later Turmerlebnis or tower experience28. During the colloquy, discussions were to be based on the “Worms Book”, but it was kept secret that Gropper and Bucer were its authors. The first four articles, on the human nature before the Fall, free choice, the cause of sin, and original sin, were accepted within one day29. In 23. Forma concordiae in CR 4, p. 32: “Est autem peccatum originale carentia iustitiae originalis, debitae inesse, cum concupiscentia”. For the background of this formula see L.F. MURPHY, Gabriel Biel as Transmitter of Aquinas to Luther, in Renaissance and Reformation 7 (1983) 26-41; cf. GANZER, Akten (n. 15), vol. 2/2, p. 211; LEXUTT, Rechtfertigung (n. 15), pp. 215-235; JANSSEN, Melanchthon und die Religionsgespräche (n. 14), pp. 154-188. 24. See the literature mentioned in note 15 and cf. the helpful overview of relevant research by SCHULTHEIS, Die Verhandlungen (n. 15), pp. 12-16. 25. LEXUTT, Rechtfertigung (n. 15), pp. 43-45. 26. A.N.S. LANE, Calvin and Article 5 of the Regensburg Colloquy, in H.J. SELDERHUIS (ed.), Calvinus Praeceptor Ecclesiae: Papers of the International Congress on Calvin Research, Princeton, August 20-24, 2002 (Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 388), Geneva, Droz, 2004, 233-263; A. LANE, Albert Pighius’s Controversial Work on Original Sin, in Reformation & Renaissance Review 4 (2002) 29-61. 27. See P. MATHESON, Cardinal Contarini at Regensburg, Oxford, Clarendon, 1972; E.G. GLEASON, Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome, and Reform, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1993, pp. 186-256; A.N.S. LANE, Cardinal Contarini and Article 5 of the Regensburg Colloquy (1541), in H.O. MEUFFELS – J. BRÜNDL (eds.), Grenzgänge der Theologie: Professor Alexandre Ganoczy zum 75. Geburtstag (Symposion, 6), Münster, Lit, 2004, 163-190. 28. H. JEDIN, Ein “Turmerlebnis” des jungen Contarini, in Historisches Jahrbuch 70 (1951) 115-130. 29. JANSSEN, Melanchthon und die Religionsgespräche (n. 14), pp. 212-218; LANE, Justification (n. 15), p. 51; LUGIOYO, Bucer’s Doctrine of Justification (n. 15), pp. 163174.

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contrast, the lengthy fifth article, on justification, evoked much discussion. It included two types of justification: the first one by which a person was freely accepted through faith, and the second one by which a person was justified through works and not only through faith. Both Eck and Melanchthon rejected this article as being too ambiguous. Gropper was asked to draw up a shorter version. After several amendments from both sides, all involved parties agreed on the final version, which now belonged to the so-called “Regensburg Book”30. Not everyone did so with as much enthusiasm as Contarini; Eck only consented reluctantly31. A close reading of the article on justification in its final version shows that it carefully balances key insights from both the Protestant Reformations and the patristic and scholastic traditions32. It does so by distinguishing two types of righteousness: inherent and imputed righteousness. Thus, the believer receives a duplex iustitia as a gift. Both types of righteousness are equally important, but not for the same reason. Acceptance is based on imputed righteousness alone, through the merits of Christ “and not on account of our own worthiness or works”33. At the same time, believers are also called righteous because of the works that arise from inherent righteousness34. The article even states that …God also renders a reward to good works … to the extent that they are performed in faith and proceed from the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us, free choice concurring as a partial agent35.

30. LEXUTT, Rechtfertigung (n. 15), pp. 236-260; LANE, Justification (n. 15), pp. 5152; JANSSEN, Melanchthon und die Religionsgespräche (n. 14), pp. 218-226; LUGIOYO, Bucer’s Doctrine of Justification (n. 15), pp. 174-203. 31. LEXUTT, Rechtfertigung (n. 15), pp. 260-270. 32. See for the text AUGUSTIJN – DE KROON, Religionsgespräche (1539-1541) (n. 15), pp. 397-401 and LANE, Article 5 of the Regensburg Colloquy (n. 27), pp. 188-190. I also use the translation by LANE, Justification (n. 15), pp. 233-237. My interpretation of this article differs at places from that of LEXUTT, Rechtfertigung (n. 15), pp. 243-260; see also the criticism of Lexutt’s exposition by LANE, Calvin and Article 5 (n. 26), pp. 256-258 and LUGIOYO, Bucer’s Doctrine of Justification (n. 15), pp. 136, 198-204. 33. AUGUSTIJN – DE KROON, Religionsgespräche (1539-1541) (n. 15), p. 399, ll. 25-26: “Et sic fide in Christum iustificamur seu reputamur iustj, id est: acceptj per ipsius merita, non propter nostrum dignitatem aut opera…”. 34. Ibid., p. 399, ll. 26-27: “…et propter inhaerentem iustitiam eo iustj dicimur, quia quae iusta sunt operamur iuxta illud Joannis: Qui facit iustitiam iustus est”. 35. LANE, Justification (n. 15), p. 236, § 8; AUGUSTIJN – DE KROON, Religionsgespräche (1539-1541) (n. 15), p. 401, ll. 9-11: “…reddit deus etiam bonis operibus mercedem … quatenus jn fide fiunt et sunt a spiritu sancto, qui habitat in nobis concurrente libero arbitrio tanquam partialj agente”.

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Elsewhere, the article speaks about justification by …living and efficacious faith … So living faith is that which both appropriates mercy in Christ, believing that the righteousness that is in Christ is freely imputed to it, and at the same time receives the promise of the Holy Spirit and love. Therefore the faith that truly justifies is that faith which is effectual through love36.

Nevertheless, the believer’s justification through faith, by which they are “accepted and reconciled to God”, is based on …the mercy and righteousness that is imputed to us on account of Christ and his merit, not on account of the worthiness or perfection of the righteousness imparted to us in Christ37.

To be sure, this idea of twofold righteousness, as it is also found in Gropper’s Enchiridion, should not be confused with a theory of double justification. The “Regensburg Book” presumes only one formal cause in justification, not a double formal cause38. In fact, the idea of duplex iustitia is rather reminiscent of the medieval distinction between iustitia infusa and iustitia acquisita39. Despite agreement reached on the decisive article on justification, the colloquy failed due to difficulties with other doctrines, such as the Eucharist and especially the authority of the Church and its councils40. This failure influenced the reception of the Regensburg statement on justification. Reactions were mixed. Interestingly, John Calvin was quite positive about the article on justification and wrote in a letter to William Fare that this article preserved “the substance of our true doctrine” and included “nothing which could not be found in our writings”41. Anthony 36. LANE, Justification (n. 15), p. 234, § 4; AUGUSTIJN – DE KROON, Religionsgespräche (1539-1541) (n. 15), p. 399, ll. 8, 14-17: “Firma itaque est sana doctrina, per fidem uiuam et efficacem iustificarj peccatorem … fides ergo uiua ea est, quae et adprehendit misericordiam in Christo ac credit iustitiam, quae est in Christo, sibi gratis imputari, et quae simul pollicitationem spiritus sanctj et charitatem adcipit, Jta quod fides quidem iustificans est illa fides, quae est efficax per charitatem”. 37. LANE, Justification (n. 15), pp. 235-236, § 4; AUGUSTIJN – DE KROON, Religionsgespräche (1539-1541) (n. 15), p. 399, ll. 17-20: “Sed interim hoc verum est, quod hac fide eatenus iustificamur, id est acceptamur et reconcili, quatenus adprehendit misericordiam et iustitiam, quę nobis imputatur propter Christum et eius meritum, non propter dignitatem seu perfectionem iustitiae nobis in Christo communicatae”. 38. Cf. LANE, Article 5 of the Regensburg Colloquy (n. 27); LUGIOYO, Bucer’s Doctrine of Justification (n. 15), p. 199. 39. Nevertheless, Groppers’ Enchiridion was placed on the Index librorum prohibitorum in 1596, due to criticism by Robert Bellarmine. 40. JANSSEN, Melanchthon und die Religionsgespräche (n. 14), pp. 226-238; LANE, Justification (n. 15), p. 52. 41. Letter to Farel (11 May 1541), in GANZER, Akten (n. 15), vol. 3/1, pp. 181-182, ll. 41-1 (also CR 39, pp. 215-216, ep. 308): “Retinuerunt enim nostri doctrinae verae

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Lane has demonstrated that this assessment was in fact true42. Similarly, the Regensburg article on justification is entirely consistent with the doctrine of Bucer in his other writings, as Brian Lugioyo has shown43. Luther, however, was dismissive towards this article, although he could accept its doctrinal statements44. The Roman authorities rejected the agreement because it was open to different interpretations45. Contarini felt the need to defend the doctrine of double justice in his famous Epistola de Iustificatione46. In another letter, he explained, interestingly, that the article did not use the word “merit” in an absolute sense since also Aquinas denied that there was merit simpliciter before God and Scotus taught “that merit is not accepted by God because it is merit, but on the contrary, it is merit because it is accepted by God”47. V. JUSTIFICATION AT THE COUNCIL

OF

TRENT (1546/1547)

After the failure of the first Colloquy of Regensburg, the papal court took up its work combating heresy. In March 1546, the second Regensburg Colloquy finally failed; a few months later the war led by Charles V against the Schmalcaldic League broke out. In this situation, the sixth session of the Council of Trent was convened on 21 June 1546 to discuss the doctrine of justification during a period of six intensive months. On occasion, there was great disagreement, and drafts had to be reworked four times or even re-created. Some Council fathers, such as Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500-1558), were clearly sympathetic to Luther’s position, others could only see him as a dangerous heretic. Regarding the teachings of the Protestant Reformers, summam: Ut nihil illic comprehensum, sit quod non exstet in scriptis nostris”. Nevertheless, Calvin was critical of the colloquy as a whole; see in detail STOLK, Calvijn en de godsdienstgesprekken (n. 15), pp. 240-317. 42. LANE, Calvin and Article 5 (n. 26), pp. 233-263. 43. LUGIOYO, Bucer’s Doctrine of Justification (n. 15), pp. 135-204. 44. GANZER, Akten (n. 15), vol. 3/1, pp. 169-172 (also WA.B. 11,406-4010); cf. LANE, Justification (n. 15), pp. 53-54. 45. GLEASON, Gasparo Contarini (n. 27), pp. 242-243. 46. GANZER, Akten (n. 15), vol. 3/1, pp. 242-250. 47. Explanatory note to article 5 (3 May 1541), in GANZER, Akten (n. 15), vol. 3/1, pp. 114-115, 115, ll. 12-19: “Nam putarunt Theologi catholici non insistendum in hoc vocabulo, cum idem sit sensus, praesertim cum Thomas 2a. 2ae ult. q. art. p.o dicat agens de merito nostro apud Deum, quod cum inter Deum et nos non sit iustitia simpliciter, sed quidam iustitiae modus, non est etiam meritum simpliciter, sed secundum quid, item Scotus in 3a sententiarum dicit, quod meritum non ideo est acceptatum a Deo, quia meritum, immo ideo est meritum, quia est acceptatum a Deo, quae dicta minuunt rationem meriti absolute dicti. Idcirco ex doctoribus Scholasticis protestantes potuissent objicere nobis, quod non deberemus uti vocabulo meriti absolute”.

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the Council relied mainly on lists of errors that have been collected by Andrés de Vega (d. 1560) and Ambrose Catharinus (1483-1553) and were largely based on Catholic polemical writings48. It is interesting to see that the Augustinian Friar Girolamo Seripando (1493-1563) brought a theory of double justification into the discussion at the Council of Trent. This theory was in part similar to the theory of double justice of the Regensburg Colloquy, although it was based on two separate formal causes and not on one single formal cause as in the theory of double justice in article 5 of the “Regensburg Book”. Seripando tried to clearly integrate Luther’s concept of imputed righteousness in the decree. However, his proposal was finally rejected49. A similar position was advocated by Cardinal Pole, major leader of the spirituali, who resigned from his duties as legate in October 154650. To be sure, the rejection of double justification did not mean that Seripando, especially, remained without influence on the decree; for one thing, his concern for a pastoral approach is reflected in various parts of the decree. It is important to stress that with its 16 pastoral chapters, the decree offers much more than the 33 canons or anathema, even if only the canons are regarded as binding dogma and played by far the major role in the reception history of the degree, often to the neglect of the explanatory chapters. 48. N.P. TANNER (ed.), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols., London, Sheed & Ward, 1990, vol. 2, pp. 671-681. See the discussion in H. JEDIN, Geschichte des Konzils von Trient, 4 in 5 vols., Freiburg i.Br., Herder, 1949-1977, esp. vol. 2; cf. H. RÜCKERT, Die Rechtfertigungslehre auf dem Tridentinischen Konzil (Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte, 3), Bonn, Marcus und Weber, 1925; O.H. PESCH, Die Canones des Trienter Rechtfertigungsdekretes: Wen trafen sie? Wen treffen sie heute?, in K. LEHMANN – W. PANNENBERG (eds.), Lehrverurteilungen – kirchentrennend?, 4 vols. (Dialog der Kirchen, 4-6, 8), Freiburg i.Br., Herder; Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986-1994, vol. 2, 243-282; A.E. MCGRATH, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 21998, pp. 308-357; LANE, Justification (n. 15), pp. 60-85; J.W. O’MALLEY, Trent: What Happened at the Council, Cambridge, MA, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013, pp. 107-115; A. GERACE, Justification by Faith: A History of the Debate, in A. MELLONI (ed.), Martin Luther: A Christian between Reforms and Modernity (1517-2017), 3 vols. (De Gruyter Reference), Berlin, De Gruyter, 2017, vol. 2, 741-758, esp. pp. 751-755. 49. JEDIN, Geschichte des Konzils von Trient (n. 48), vol. 2, pp. 238-239; P. PAS, La doctrine de la double justice au Concile de Trent, in Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 30 (1954) 5-53; MCGRATH, Iustitia Dei (n. 48), pp. 322-323, 330-334; LANE, Justification (n. 15), pp. 60-65. Cf. H. JEDIN, Girolamo Seripando: Sein Leben und Denken im Geisteskampf des 16. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. (Cassiciacum, 2-3), Würzburg, Rita-Verlag und -Druckerei der Augustiner, 1937. 50. JEDIN, Geschichte des Konzils von Trient (n. 48), vol. 2, p. 279; T.F. MAYER, Reginald Pole: Prince & Prophet, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 143-174.

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The Decree on Justification shows a high level of sophistication and cannot easily be summarized, but five points are especially important to highlight51. In the first place, the decree rejects pelagianizing tendencies. It does so in line with the Canons of the Council of Orange of 529, which had only been rediscovered in 1538. This anti-Pelagian strand is clearly visible in the first three canons. Thus, the first anathema applies to anyone who says, “that a person can be justified before God by his own works … apart from divine grace through Jesus Christ” (can. 1)52. The Council also rejected the notion that a person can “live justly” and “merit eternal life … through free choice without grace” (can. 2)53 or that “without preceding inspiration of the holy Spirit and without his help, a person can believe, hope, and repent, as he ought, so that the grace of justification may be granted to him” (can. 3)54. Thus, as far as the sola gratia is concerned, there is no significant difference with the Protestant Reformers. Second, although justification cannot be obtained by human striving, the decree does emphasize the involvement of human beings in the process of justification, albeit fully enclosed in divine grace: under the influence of grace, people freely accept the movement of grace. In this regard, the fifth chapter is instructive. According to its title, it speaks about the “preparation for justification in adults”55, but it understands this in a decidedly anti-Pelagian sense: Consequently, though God touches a person’s heart through the light of the holy Spirit, neither does that person do absolutely nothing in receiving that movement of grace, for he can also reject it; nor is he able, by his own free will and without God’s grace, to move toward justice in God’s sight (cap. 5)56.

51. Cf. for a similar account O’MALLEY, Trent (n. 48), pp. 113-115. 52. TANNER, Decrees (n. 48), vol. 2, p. 679: “Si quis dixerit, hominem suis operibus, quae vel per humanae naturae vires, vel per legis doctrinam fiant, absque divina per christum Iesum gratia posse iustificari coram Deo: a. s.”. 53. Ibid.: “Si quis dixerit, ad hoc solum divinam gratiam per Christum Iesum dari, ut facilius homo iuste vivere ac vitam aeternam promereri possit, quasi per liberum arbitrium sine gratia utrumquae, sed aegre tamen et difficulter possit: a. s.”. 54. Ibid.: “Si quis dixerit, sine praeveniente Spiritus sancti inspiratione atque eius adiutorio hominem credere, sperare et diligere aut poenitere posse, sicut oportet, ut ei iustificationis gratia conferatur: a. s.”. 55. Ibid., p. 672: “De necessitate praeparationis ad iustificationem in adultis, et unde sit”. 56. Ibid.: “ita ut tangent Deo cor hominis per Spiritus sancti illuminationem neque homo ipse nihil omnino agat, inspirationem illam recipiens, quippe qui illam et abiicere potest, neque tamen sine gratia Dei movere se ad iustitiam coram illo libera sua voluntate possit”.

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In this context, all human merits are explicitly excluded. The decree here merely emphasizes that the human being is involved in the process of justification. It is striking in this regard that the decree stayed as much as possible away from internal Catholic disputes between the older Thomist school, on the one hand, and the older and younger Franciscan schools, on the other. Thus, the Council fathers themselves could interpret even decisive passages in different ways. Take, for instance, chapter 8 which emphasizes that “we are said to receive justification as a free gift because nothing that precedes justification, neither faith nor works, would merit the grace of justification (ipsam iustificationis gratiam promeretur)”57. According to the Dominican Domingo de Soto (1494-1560), this excluded every kind of merit, even the weaker meritum de congruo or merit of congruity58. In contrast, the Franciscan Andrés de Vega read in this text that only the stronger meritum de condigno or merit of condignity was excluded, but not the meritum de congruo59. However, depending on the connotations and even denotations of the respective concept of merit, this could also be a mainly terminological difference here; the decree certainly does not make any effort to resolve this dispute60. Heiko Oberman’s claim that the term promereri, in distinction to mereri, should be equated with the meritum de condigno, is quite problematic and has been convincingly refuted by Edward Schillebeeckx and especially Hanns Rückert61. Related to the second point, concerning the involvement of human beings in the process of justification as governed by divine grace, is the third point, which concerns human free choice. According to the decree, free choice has not been lost or destroyed (can. 5)62, although it is

57. Ibid., p. 674: “gratis autem iustifcari ideo dicamur, quia nihil eorum, quae iustificationem praecedunt, sive fides, sive opera, ipsam iustificationis gratiam promeretur…”. 58. D. DE SOTO, De natura et gratia, Paris, Foucher, 1549, 2,4, fol. 109r – 111v; cf. MCGRATH, Iustitia Dei (n. 48), pp. 346-347. 59. A. DE VEGA, De iustificatione doctrina universia, libris XV, Köln, Calenius & Quentelius, 1572, 7,8, fol. 137; 8,10, fol. 194; cf. MCGRATH, Iustitia Dei (n. 48), p. 347. 60. Cf. O’MALLEY, Trent (n. 48), p. 114, and also DETTLOFF, Acceptatio divina (n. 6), pp. 214-217. 61. H.A. OBERMAN, Das tridentinische Rechtfertigungsdekret im Lichte spätmittelalterlicher Theologie, in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 61 (1964) 251-282; E. SCHILLEBEECKX, Das tridentinische Rechtfertigungsdekret in neuer Sicht, in Concilium (German) 1 (1965) 452-454; H. RÜCKERT, Promereri: Eine Studie zum tridentinischen Rechtfertigungsdekret als Antwort an H. A. Oberman, in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 68 (1971) 132-194, who favors a thomistic interpretation of the decree. 62. TANNER, Decrees (n. 48), vol. 2, p. 671: “tametsi in eis liberum arbitrium minime extinctum esset, viribus licet attenuatum et inclinatum”.

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weakened and has a tendency towards sin (cap. 1)63, and thus can reject “the movement of grace”64. The decree here applies the findings of the earlier Decree on Original Sin to the doctrine on justification65. Fourth, justification is not merely forensic, but also effectively creates a new relationship of humans to God in a process of transformation: If anyone says that people are justified either by the imputation of the justice of Christ alone or by the remission of sins alone, to the exclusion of grace and the love which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Spirit and inheres in them …: let him be anathema (can. 11)66.

The justified person, gifted with infused love, is also in a meritorious sense included in the ongoing soteriological process, although always under the influence of divine grace. In the case of severe sin, the sacrament of penance provides assistance. Finally, it must be emphasized that the justification of the adult begins with faith, although it becomes effective only when combined with hope and love. This becomes clear in chapter 7, where the actual justification is explained by means of a Trinitarian framework, involving five causes: The “final cause” is “the glory of God and of Christ”; the “efficient cause” is God as he is merciful; the meritorious cause is “our lord Jesus Christ”, the “most beloved and only-begotten Son” who “has merited justification for us” and “made satisfaction to God the Father on our behalf”; the “instrumental cause” of justification is “baptism, which is the sacrament of faith”; finally, the “formal cause” is the righteousness of God “by which he justifies us”67. The justification of the sinner is based on the merits of Christ, but also entails that “the love of God is poured out by the agency of the holy Spirit in the hearts of those who are justified”. Thus, the justified person receives, “together with the forgiveness of sin”, at the same time “faith, hope and charity”, all of 63. Ibid., p. 679: “Si quis liberum hominis arbitrium post Adae peccatum amissum et extinctum esse dixerit, aut rem esse de solo titulo, immo titulum sine re, figmentum denique a satana invectum in ecclesiam: a. s.”. 64. See above, n. 54. 65. Decree Concerning Original Sin, in TANNER, Decrees (n. 48), vol. 2, pp. 665-667. 66. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 679: “Si quis dixerit, homines iustificari vel sola imputatione iustitiae Christi, vel sola peccatorum remissione, exclusa gratia et charitate, quae in cordibus eorum per Spiritum sanctum diffundatur atque illis inhaereat, aut etiam gratiam, qua iustificamur, esse tantum favorem Dei: a. s.”. 67. Ibid., p. 673: “Huius iustitifactionis causae sunt: finalis quidem gloria Dei et Christi ac vita aeterna; efficiens vero misericors Deus…; meritoria autem dilectissimus unigenitus suus domininus noster Christus, qui … nobis iustificationem meruit et pro nobis Deo Patri satisfecit; instrumentalis item sacramentum baptismi, quod est sacramentum fidei … Demum unica formalis causa est iustitia Dei, non qua ipse iustus est, sed qua nos iustos facit…”.

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which are needed for perfect union with Christ68. True faith is, in the words of Gal 5,2, faith “working through love” (fides “quae per charitatem operatur”)69. In this light, the decree understands the Pauline statements “that a person is justified by faith and as a gift” (Rom 3,28; 3,24) as referring to faith as “the first stage of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification” and to the “free gift” by which people receive justification “because nothing, that precedes justification, neither faith nor works, would merit the grace of justification” (cap. 8)70. Moreover, it rejects justification “by faith alone” (sola fide) if this means the exclusion of every movement of the human will (can. 9) or if this faith is reduced to faith by which a person “believes that he is justified” (can. 14)71. The decree also rejects justification based solely on “the attribution of Christ’s justice” or “the forgiveness of sin, to the exclusion of the grace and charity”, both of which are poured out by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the believers (can. 11)72. VI. JUSTIFICATION, GRACE

AND

FREE WILL AFTER TRENT

It was surely a major accomplishment of the Council of Trent that the doctrine of justification received ample attention in a carefully formulated decree; it attempted to do justice to justification. However, Protestant theologians were largely disappointed by the results. Whereas Luther had died on 18 February 1546 before the Council passed any decree, Melanchthon criticized in March 1547 the decree on justification and its denial of the certainty of justification73. Moreover, since Protestants

68. Ibid.: “…dum eiusdem sanctissimae passionis merito per Spiritum sanctum charitas Dei diffunditur in cordibus eorum, qui iustificantur, atque ipsis inhaeret. Unde in ipsa iustificatione cum remissione peccatorum haec omnia simul infusa accipit homo per Iesum Christum, cui inseritur: fidem, spem et charitatem. Nam fides, nisi ad eam spes accedat et charitas, neque unit perfecte cum Christo…”. 69. Ibid. 70. Ibid., p. 674: “Cum vero Apostolus dicit, iustificari hominem per fidem, et gratis, ea verba in eo sensu intelligenda sunt … ut scilicet per fidem ideo iustificari dicamur, quia fides est humanae salutis initium, fundamentum et radix omnis iustificationis; … gratis autem iustificari ideo dicamur, quia nihil eorum, quae iustificationem praecedunt, sive fides, sive opera, ipsam iustificationis gratiam promeretur…”. 71. Ibid., pp. 679-680. 72. Ibid., p. 680: “…exclusa gratia et charitate, quae in cordibus eorum per Spiritum sanctum diffundatur…”. 73. CR 6, pp. 432-433 (no. 3776; letter to Justus Jonas); CR 6, p. 450 (no. 3796; letter to Christoph Piscator).

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had not been in the position to contribute to the Council during its first period (1545-1547/1548), they requested, to no avail, that the decisions taken during this period should be annulled as a condition for their participation during the second period (1551-1552)74. Instead, the Council fathers signed all decrees at the end of the Council’s third period (1562-1563), and Pius IV confirmed them on 26 January 156475. As early as November 1547, John Calvin published a detailed refutation of the first seven sessions of the Council together with a full reprint of the text of the decisions taken at these sessions76. Although Calvin fully agreed with several canons, including the anti-Pelagian canons 1-3 and 2277, he did not seem to read the decree in the light of these canons. Instead, he demurred that the Council errs “in sharing the work between God and ourselves, so as to transfer to ourselves the obedience of a pious will in assenting to divine grace, whereas this is the proper work of God Himself”78. Remarkably, Calvin pled as late as in 1560 for a “free and universal council” which should be truly ecumenical and “put an end to the divisions which exist in Christianity”; Calvin still hoped for nothing less than that “all of Christianity would be reunited”79. One major doctrinal question to consider would be “whether we are justified by the merit of good works or by the freely given grace of God” as the basis of our salvation80. On the Lutheran side, most notably Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586) published an extensive Examination of the Council of Trent81. He was 74. O’MALLEY, Trent (n. 48), p. 141. 75. Ibid., p. 250. 76. JEAN CALVIN, Acta Synodi Tridentinae Cum Antidoto, in CR 35, pp. 365-506 (on justification: CR 35, pp. 429-486); J. CALVIN, Tracts Relating to the Reformation, trans. H. BEVERIDGE, 3 vols., Edinburgh, The Calvin Translation Society, 1844-1851, vol. 3, pp. 17-188; cf. T.W. CASTEEL, Calvin and Trent: Calvin’s Reaction to the Council of Trent in the Context of His Conciliar Thought, in Harvard Theological Review 63 (1970) 91-117. 77. CR 35, pp. 473, 481. He also agreed with canon 22; see CR 35, p. 476. 78. CR 13, p. 446; CALVIN, Tracts (n. 76), vol. 3, p. 113. 79. JEAN CALVIN, Mémoire sur le concile, in CR 46, pp. 285-287, 285: “Pour mettre fin aux divisions qui sont en la chrestienté, il est besoin d’avoir un concile libre et universel”; 287: “ …afin que toute la chrestienté soit reunie…”. Cf. CASTEEL, Calvin and Trent (n. 76), pp. 115-117. The memorandum was probably written in December 1560 or March 1562. 80. CR 46, p. 287: “Apres il est question de savoir sur quoy la fiancé de nostre salut est fondee, et si nous sommes justifies par le merite de nos oeuvres, ou par la misericorde gratuite de Dieu”. 81. M. CHEMNITZ, Examen decretorum Concilii Tridentini, 4 vols., Frankfurt a.M., Georg Grab d. Ä., 1566-1573; since 1574 published in many editions as Examen Concilii Tridentini … opus integrum. Cf. F. NÜSSEL, Allein aus Glauben: Zur Entwicklung der

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also one of the principal authors of the Formula of Concord (1577), which was intended to achieve reconciliation among the Lutherans after decades of doctrinal controversy. The treatment of justification in the Formula was mainly directed against the interpretation of Andreas Osiander (ca. 1498-1552), but also partly against the Tridentine degree, without mentioning any names82. In a similar vein to the “Regensburg Book”, the Formula acknowledged “two kinds of righteousness”: believers “have first of all the righteousness of faith that is reckoned to them, and then thereafter the righteousness of new obedience for good works that are begun in them”. Confusion of both kinds of righteousness must be avoided since only the imputed righteousness, which is based on the righteousness of Christ, “can stand before God’s tribunal”, whereas the inherent righteousness of love and good works remains “imperfect and impure in this life”83. In this sense, it could be said that the believer is simul iustus et peccator. In its treatment on free will, the Formula rejected the doctrine of the “synergists”, but it also emphasized that the work of divine grace does not entirely exclude human cooperation. Thus, it declared: “As soon as the Holy Spirit has initiated his work of regeneration and renewal in us through the Word and the holy sacraments, it is certain that we can and must cooperate by the power of the Holy Spirit, even though we do so in great weakness”84. In Catholic theology, the doctrine of justification continued to play a less prominent role than in Protestant theology, even though the Council of Trent gave ample attention to the doctrine of justification in a carefully formulated decree. In the wake of the Council the focus tended to shift to the broader relationship between divine grace and human freedom, in which the doctrine of justification was embedded but not always strongly emphasized85. In the reminder of this section, I will briefly comment on this development, especially in the Low Countries. Interestingly, the doctrinal dividing lines did not run precisely along the Catholic-Protestant divide but transcended confessional division.

Rechtfertigungslehre in der konkordistischen und frühen nachkonkordistischen Theologie (Forschungen zur systematischen und ökumenischen Theologie, 95), Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000, pp. 121-127. 82. Formula Concordiae, art. 3, in KOLB – WENGERT, The Book of Concord (n. 1), pp. 494-497 (Epitome); ibid., pp. 562-573 (Solida Declaratio). 83. Ibid., pp. 567-568 (Solida Declaratio, art. 3, par. 32). 84. Ibid., p. 556 (Solida Declaratio, art. 2, par. 64). 85. MCGRATH, Iustitia Dei (n. 48), pp. 348-357; O’MALLEY, Trent (n. 48), p. 115.

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In Louvain, the Augustinian theologian Michael De Bay or Baius (1513-1589) held views on original sin, grace and free choice that his opponents perceived as coming close to those of most Protestants86. This led to some controversy among Catholic theologians. On 1 October 1567, Pius V sent the bull Ex omnibus afflictionibus to the theological faculty of Louvain. The bull censured 76 alleged theses of Baius. Since the precise nature of the censure was somewhat vague, Baianistic theology remained popular in Louvain. When in 1585 Leonard Lessius (1554-1623) came to Louvain as professor at the Jesuit College, he opposed Baianism in his Theses theologiae (1586), which he wrote together with his colleague Jean Hamel. Consequently, Lessius clashed with the Louvain faculty which censured on 9 September 1587 thirty-one of these theses as semi-Pelagian87. Likewise, on 20 February 1588 the sister faculty of Douai issued a judgment concerning Lessius’ theses, which was even stronger. Its main author was William Hessels van Est or Estius (15421613)88. Remarkably, Lessius emphasized human freedom in an even more radical way than Luis de Molina (1535-1600) would later do in his Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis (1588). According to both theologians, the human will determines itself without divine predetermination. God’s providence and predestination, in turn, follow his foreknowledge of the human will’s autonomous self-determinations, grace is resistible, and the gift of perseverance is not necessarily efficacious. Whereas Molina held that divine election presupposed foreknowledge of human merits (post praevisa merita, or in his own words: per propria merita), Lessius made the stronger claim that election was based on foreseen merits (ex praevisis meritis)89. 86. DH 1901-1980. 87. R.J. MATAVA, Divine Causality and Human Free Choice: Domingo Báñez, Physical Premotion and the Controversy de Auxiliis Revisited (Brill’s Studies in Itellectual History, 252), Leiden, Brill, 2016, pp. 23-26; cf. E.J.M. VAN EIJL, La controverse louvaniste autour de la grâce et du libre arbitre à la fin du XVIe siècle, in M. LAMBERIGTS – L. KENIS (eds.), L’Augustinisme à l’ancienne Faculté de théologie de Louvain (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 111), Leuven, Leuven University Press – Peeters, 1994, 207-282. 88. W. FRANÇOIS, Augustine and the Golden Age of Biblical Scholarship in Louvain (1550-1650), in B. GORDON (ed.), Shaping the Bible in the Reformation: Books, Scholars, and Their Readers in the Sixteenth Century (Library of the Written Word, 20), Leiden, Brill, 2012, 235-289, pp. 263-264. 89. J. CRUZ CRUZ, Predestination as Transcendent Teleology: Molina and the First Molinism, in M. KAUFMANN – A. AICHELE (eds.), A Companion to Luis de Molina (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 50), Leiden, Brill, 2014, 89-121; cf. A.J. FREDDOSO, Introduction, in ID. (ed.), Luis de Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge (Part IV of the Concordia), Ithaca, NY – London, Cornell University Press, 1988, 1-81.

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The Louvain faculty and Estius, in contrast, maintained that the human will is self-determining only in a weak sense, inasmuch as it is related to divine predetermination. Moreover, divine predestination is not based on foreknowledge, grace is intrinsically efficacious, election is ante, not post praevisa merita, and the gift of perseverance is infallible90. The Spanish Dominican Domingo Báñez (1528-1604) took on most points a similar position in his response to Molina and other Jesuits91. In the Dutch Republic, the conflict between Jacobus Arminius (15601609) and Franciscus Gomarus (1563-1641) in the early-seventeenth century resembled the Catholic controversies on grace in the late-sixteenth century. Indeed, it was a clear sequel to the controversy de auxiliis. Arminius followed the position of the Jesuit theologians Molina, Pedro da Fonseca (1528-1599) and Francisco Suárez (1548-1617) and based election on God’s foreknowledge of human faith, using the concept of divine middle knowledge, scientia media92. Gomarus, on the other hand, came close in his reaction to the response of Báñez and his supporters. For Gomarus, election was not based on divine foreknowledge but instead on the contingent divine decree, which left room for free and contingent human activity93. In the Catholic Church, the doctrine of the Jesuit theologians was hotly debated and by a hair’s breadth condemned. This did not happen, though, 90. MATAVA, Divine Causality (n. 87), pp. 27-29; cf. A. FLEISCHMANN, Die Gnadenlehre des Wilhelm Estius und ihre Stellung zum Bajanismus: Eine dogmengeschichtliche Untersuchung zu den Gnadenstreitigkeiten des ausgehenden 16. Jahrhunderts, Kallmünz, Oberpfalz-Verlag, 1940; W. FRANÇOIS, Efficacious Grace and Predestination in the Bible Commentaries of Estius, Jansenius and Fromondus, in D. BURKARD – T. THANNER (eds.), Der Jansenismus – eine “katholische Häresie”? Das Ringen um Gnade, Rechtfertigung und die Autorität Augustins in der frühen Neuzeit (Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, 159), Münster, Aschendorff, 2014, 117-143. 91. MATAVA, Divine Causality (n. 87), pp. 116-156; cf. S.-T. BONINO, Le thomisme ‘moderne’ de Dominique Bañez, in C. GONZALEZ-AYESTA (ed.), El alma humana: essencia y destino, IV Centenario de Domingo Bañez (1528-1604) (Pensiamento medieval y renascentista, 75), Pamplona, EUNSA, 2006, 15-35; Y. CAI, The Efficacy of Grace according to Domingo Bañez, in Augustiniana 62 (2012) 291-326. 92. E. DEKKER, Was Arminius a Molinist?, in The Sixteenth Century Journal 27 (1996) 337-352; K.D. STANGLIN, Arminius on the Assurance of Salvation: The Context, Roots, and Shape of the Leiden Debate, 1603-1609 (Brill’s Series in Church History, 27), Leiden, Brill, 2007, pp. 85-89. 93. A. VOS, Reformed Orthodoxy in the Netherlands, in H.J. SELDERHUIS (ed.), A Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 40), Leiden, Brill, 2013, 121-176, esp. pp. 142-146; W.J. VAN ASSELT – E. DEKKER – M.A. SCHOUTEN, Undisputed Freedom: A Disputation of Franciscus Gomarus (15631641), in W.J. VAN ASSELT – M. BAC – D. TE VELDE (eds.), Reformed Thought on Freedom: The Concept of Free Choice in the History of Early-Modern Reformed Theology (Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought), Grand Rapids, MI, Baker Academic, 2010, 127-144.

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as Pope Paul V decreed in 1607 that both the Jesuits and Dominicans could defend their own doctrines and were to tolerate the opposite opinions94. All the same, radical Augustinianism would re-emerge in the seventeenth century in the context of the Jansenist controversy95. Within the Reformed Churches, however, the Synod of Dordt did lead to a decision, when in 1618-1619 an international committee of dozens of delegates from all over Europe rejected the Remonstrant position, which largely endorsed the teaching of Arminius96. VII. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS When we look at the early modern controversy on justification and grace from the perspective of the theme of this volume, we see that it brought both renewal and polemics. In retrospective, this controversy has often been described in terms of clear-cut and mutually exclusive alternative systems. A recent example is Daphne Hampson’s argument, that linear Catholic thought and dialectic Lutheran thought are totally incompatible97. Yet the historical realities are much more complex and simply do not fit such typologies. Although different religious groups tried to do justice to justification in diverging ways, it was not only possible in theory that agreements could be reached, in ideal circumstances, but it actually did happen. Even if the remarkable agreements in the “Regensburg Book” on sin, free choice and justification did not last for long, they are nevertheless significant. Thus the central article on justification has been rightly described as “a finely balanced piece of conciliation”, which “exhibits an integrity at its own” in a language “of conviction, not caution”, taking up “a clear line” rather than “ambiguity”98. The agreement on this and other articles at Regensburg may indicate that the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification of 1999 does not simply betray the early modern Reformations for the very fact that now an agreement has been reached. If Bucer, Calvin and Melanchthon, perhaps even Luther, and if Gropper, Contarini, Pflug and 94. DH 1997; MATAVA, Divine Causality (n. 87), pp. 33-34. 95. FRANÇOIS, Augustine (n. 88), pp. 276-288; cf. BURKARD – THANNER (eds.), Jansenismus (n. 90); M. COTTRET, Histoire du jansénisme: XVIIe-XIXe siècle (Pour l’histoire), Paris, Perrin, 2016. 96. D. SINNEMA, The Canons of Dordt: From Judgment on Arminianism to Confessional Standard, in A. GOUDRIAAN – F.A. VAN LIEBURG (eds.), Revisiting the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619) (Brill’s Series in Church History, 49), Leiden, Brill, 2011, 313-333. 97. M.D. HAMPSON, Christian Contradictions: The Structures of Lutheran and Catholic Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001. 98. MATHESON, Cardinal Contarini at Regensburg (n. 27), pp. 107-108.

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even Eck could accept the article on justification at Regensburg, it is surely not inconceivable that they also could have agreed with a document like the Joint Declaration, although such anachronistic remarks should be taken with caution. As noted above, in the end, the Colloquy of Regensburg failed, despite the noteworthy agreements, and it did so for different reasons, including a possible mismatch between traditional academic forms of dispute and changing cultures of dialogue and decision making99. The “Regensburg Book” never reached confessional status and was superseded by the decrees of the Council of Trent and by Protestant confessions, both of which enforced the confessional divides. Nevertheless, one would be mistaken to overlook the strong role of grace in the Tridentine doctrine of justification and its anti-Pelagian thrust. Moreover, in the post-Tridentine disputes on the relationship between divine grace and human freedom, in which the doctrine of justification was embedded, the dividing lines did not run precisely along the Catholic-Protestant divide but transcended confessional borders. The debates between Lessius and Estius, and especially those between Molina and Báñez in the controversy de auxiliis, showed striking similarities to the conflict between Arminius and Gomarus, which led to the canons of the Synod of Dordt. Retrospectively, we can see that transconfessional agreement in soteriological issues was not only possible regarding the prominent role of divine grace, but also regarding the role of faith. On the subject of justification sola fide, important divergences were largely based on differing terminologies and mutual misunderstandings. For Luther and other Protestant Reformers, faith meant not only assent but necessarily entailed cordial trust: faith that accepts the promise through assensus is already fiducia since it entails trust in God who is gracious to us through Christ. Thus the aspects of notitia or assensus on the one hand and fiducia on the other hand are held together. Faith is soteriologically oriented: it is about the forgiveness and righteousness of God, given by God and applied personally to a believer’s union with Christ. The primary effect of faith is justification, which in turn leads to renewal100. 99. K.G. APPOLD, Warum sind die Religionsgespräche des 16. Jahrhunderts gescheitert?, in A. BIRMELÉ – W. THÖNISSEN (eds.), Auf dem Weg zur Gemeinschaft: 50 Jahre internationaler evangelisch-lutherisch/römisch-katholischer Dialog: Theodor Dieter zum 65. Geburtstag, Paderborn, Bonifatius; Leipzig, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2018, 37-50. 100. See WA 40/1, pp. 288,27 – 229,32 (Luther’s Commentary on Galatians); CR 21, pp. 745-746 (Melanchthon’s Loci communes tertia aetas); cf. W.-F. SCHÄUFELE, Fiducia bei Martin Luther, in I.U. DALFERTH – S. PENG-KELLER (eds.), Gottvertrauen: Die ökumenische Diskussion um die fiducia (Quaestiones Disputatae, 250), Freiburg i.Br., Herder, 2012, 136-181; C. RICHTER, Fiducia bei Martin Luther, ibid., 209-242.

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The concept of faith in the Tridentine doctrine of justification was very different101. Thus the question arises whether canons 9 and 14, which reject the notion of a sinner being justified sola fide, would at all meet the qualifications of Luther’s or Melanchthon’s doctrine of justification102. Arguably, it was the traditional Augustinian-medieval concept of faith, connected with Aristotelian faculty psychology, which was at work in the Tridentine decree of justification. Thus, “faith” was conceptually situated on the level of intellectus and conceived in the sense of notitia or assensus. Seen in this way, “faith” was purely abstract and not as such integrated into the notion of a personal relationship. Consequently, concrete and living faith, which affects the whole human being in his or her relation to God, could only be found at the level of voluntas and caritas. This is the meaning of the scholastic fides caritate formata, which underlies the Tridentine decree. Within the language of most Council fathers, it simply did not make sense to speak about sola fide if not understood in the sense of faith which works in love, which they found rejected by the Protestant Reformers103. Since the decree of justification also includes many quotations of Pauline language, a highly complex language structure results which is not always consistent. If analysed in terms of its underlying conceptual level, however, there is room for far-reaching convergences with the Protestant understanding of an embracing concept of faith that connects notitia and fiducia as seen in the context of the Christian believer’s union with Christ. In early modernity, both Protestants and Catholics tried to do justice to justification and grace, albeit more often than not in different ways. Perhaps the recent document From Conflict to Communion104 can inspire also in this respect Christians from both traditions to jointly look back to the early modern Reformations and to learn from each other, in communion. ETF – Evangelische Theologische Faculteit Sint-Jansbergsesteenweg 97 BE-3001 Leuven Belgium [email protected]

Andreas J. BECK

101. See P. WALTER, Zum Glaubensverständnis des Rechtfertigungsdekrets des Trienter Konzils, in DALFERTH – PENG-KELLER (eds.), Gottvertrauen (n. 100), 209-242. 102. PESCH, Canones (n. 48), pp. 255, 261-263. 103. O.H. PESCH – A. PETERS, Einführung in die Lehre von Gnade und Rechtfertigung, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 21989, pp. 191-195. 104. From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017: Report of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity, Leipzig, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt; Paderborn, Bonifatius, 2013.

CATHOLICISM, PROTESTANTISM AND THE THEOLOGICAL LOCATION OF PARADOX NATURE, GRACE, SIN

Issues of grace and justification are not, whatever may have been supposed in the past, church dividing – that this can be asserted with confidence is a tribute to the success of ecumenical scholarship in recent decades. When one has said this, however, one has not necessarily said everything there is to say. There are, I believe, real, enduring, ongoing differences in typical Protestant and Catholic patterning of thought around grace, and the differences are worth exploring: they are interesting, and theologically rich. In this paper, then, since the concern is with on-going difference, I will not attempt to repeat the work of historical theologians and revisit the struggles of the sixteenth century, but focus on what I take to be examples of systematic Protestant/Catholic differences in some recent theological work. But is there anything that can be said in general about Catholic views of grace, or Protestant views of grace? Perhaps not. The aim in what follows will be to compare, not all Catholic with all Protestant thought, but what I take to be the best of Catholic theology, on the one hand, with a significant strand of Protestant theology, on the other – a pattern of talking about grace which is recognisably, distinctively Protestant even if not all Protestant thought falls into this pattern. One might say, by analogy, that the fast-talking New Yorker is a distinctively American type, even if not all Americans are fast-talking. To begin, then, with a broad and perhaps familiar comparative framework, Catholic thought on grace tends to be shaped by its pairing with nature, much Protestant thought, by a pairing with sin. So for a typical Catholic thinker, how the human being is as created by God is a starting point for, or at least a significant point of reference for, reflection on grace – we have some sort of understanding of grace when we understand how grace takes us beyond the gift of nature; for at least some prominent strands in Protestant thought, by contrast, we understand grace to the extent that we understand that and how it is a response to sin – sin is the problem for which grace is the solution. What I would like to suggest is that in each of these patterns, in the sin/grace pattern and in the nature/grace pattern, there is a distinct pull

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towards paradox. One way to understand the Protestant/Catholic distinction, in other words, is to attend precisely to where one places one’s paradox, or where one most inclines towards paradox. We might call this the lump-under-the-carpet issue: everyone has one, but it typically turns up in a slightly different place for Catholics than for Protestants. In what follows, I will first offer a brief sketch of each of these two patterns (with their attendant lumps), and then look in a little more detail at the interaction of these patterns in some recent work by the leading American theologian Kathryn Tanner1. Tanner provides an interesting case study for several reasons. While she has always done her constructive theology in a consciously ecumenical mode, deliberately drawing on a range of sources, pre-modern, Protestant and Catholic, and while her earlier works were I think equally accessible and helpful to Catholics and Protestants alike, a distinctly Protestant sensibility around sin and grace has made itself felt in her two most recent projects. In Christ the Key she borrows typically Catholic language of nature and grace to work out what is nevertheless a powerfully Protestant vision2. And in her recent Gifford lectures on theology and capitalism3, it becomes clear just what a far-reaching effect the commitment to a Protestant pattern of thinking on grace has: the question of where the lump under the carpet lies, of whether grace comes paired with sin or with nature, is not just a question about theological abstractions or about how to organise a text book, but a question which has a bearing on almost anything one might care to think of, including how one frames resistance to global financial capitalism. I. TWO PATTERNS EXPLORED Let me begin by proposing three principles which seem to govern a typically Protestant strand of the theology of grace. First, the sharpest possible antithesis between sin and grace must be maintained. For grace to be appreciated and our utter dependence on it grasped, the opposition between grace and what we are apart from grace, understood as a state of sin, needs to be as complete as possible. Secondly, there is a requirement that this radical dependence on grace can never become a thing of 1. See my monograph – in which this paper is included as a chapter – for more context: K. KILBY, God, Evil and the Limits of Theology, London, Bloomsbury [forthcoming]. 2. K. TANNER, Christ the Key, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010. 3. K. TANNER, Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism, New Haven, CT – London, Yale University Press, 2019.

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the past. The sin/grace opposition is always now, always contemporary, never narrated as a sequence that is receding in history. If sin did not remain a current reality, something which even now, and not just in the past, radically threatens; which even now, and not just in the past, needs to be met and overcome by grace, then grace would lose something of its power. And finally, grace can never be something in our control: it cannot be caught or held; it cannot be supposed to reliably follow from anything which might lie in our command, anything that we might do, whether in sacrament and liturgy or good works or study or techniques of meditation or anything else. With these three principles taken together, we are not far from the territory of paradox. On the one hand, the purpose of such a theology of grace is in large part to reinforce trust in and gratitude for what God does in Christ, to insist on the ever present necessity of grace, to properly honour and praise it. On the other hand, because of the second principle, because our need for grace, our need for delivery from sin, must always continue to be emphasised, there is also a level on which we have to be very careful in talking about any change to who we are in ourselves being brought about by grace. It is not just that sanctification needs to be distinguished from justification, but that sanctification is somehow a source of real ambivalence, attended by a degree of nervousness. For this strand of Protestantism, there is something like a double affirmation always to be made: grace is really working, it is powerful, it makes all the difference; and grace is needed just as much today as it was yesterday, because we remain ultimately, in ourselves, unchanged, still sinners. One must be very careful about ever supposing that one has moved away from the starting point. One must insist that grace makes all the difference, but at the same time there is a pull towards insisting that on some level grace makes almost no difference. Something of this pattern is I think captured in the words of the Book of Common Prayer, designed to be recited regularly by Anglicans at Morning and Evening prayer: after confessing, as Christians of any tradition might, that “We have offended against thy holy laws: We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done”, after confessing, in other words, particular sins of omission and commission, the Anglican faithful are led to draw a radically general conclusion: “and there is no health in us”. So each morning and evening, in all kinds of ways the congregation as envisaged by the Book of Common Prayer prays for the grace of Christ and for the coming of the Holy Spirit – praying in a way that suggests that these things are real – and yet always they come back, half

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a day later, to the claim that they are starting from zero, that there has been absolutely no outcome, at least on the level of sanctification, from all the previous prayers: “there is no health in us”. However, if there is, in a certain strand of Protestant thought, this proclivity towards a somewhat paradoxical account of sin and grace, this is not I think grounds for any kind of smugness on the part of Catholics. There might be a temptation, observing from the sidelines, to think to oneself, “those poor Protestants, with their dialectical tendencies, constantly inclined towards getting themselves into a tangle over sin and grace – at least we have an intelligible account of such things, where we can tell a consistent, incremental story of a real if gradual healing of sin and a visible, if incomplete, effect of grace in our lives”. Catholics need to resist such a smug response not only because there is probably some truth in the recurring Protestant worry that Catholic theology does not take sin seriously enough; and not only because we might hear something both existentially compelling and distinctly Pauline in this persisting Protestant dialectic. We also need to resist a smug response because Catholic theology of grace has its own paradoxical proclivity, its own field of recurring tension. In Catholic theology, typically, there is an emphasis on the idea that nature, and specifically the human being as created by God, is good, to be valued and affirmed: it has its own kind of integrity, a certain wholeness, and yet it is also yearning for something more, incomplete, desiring to go beyond itself. It is whole and it is not whole. At the centre of nature is a longing to transcend nature. Or to approach the matter from the other side, grace and the supernatural are simultaneously in a sense “natural” to us – they are what we long for, what we recognize, in encountering them, as that which fulfills us, that which we were made for – and radically unnatural to us – they are strictly beyond us, they are that which we are, in ourselves, by our nature, not. Or again, if we shift to the language of divinisation, the human being as divinized remains herself at the same time as she is raised above herself. One is simultaneously creaturely and raised to something beyond the creaturely; one is beyond oneself without ceasing to be oneself. One of the most significant Catholic theological controversies of twentieth century was provoked by Henri de Lubac’s Surnaturel, and specifically the claim within it (which I have just been echoing in various ways) that there is a natural desire for the supernatural4. De Lubac 4. H. DE LUBAC, Surnaturel, Paris, Aubier-Montaigne, 1945. For an overview of de Lubac’s position, see N.J. HEALY, JR., The Christian Mystery of Nature and Grace, in

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emerged the clear winner in this controversy from the point of view of fidelity to the tradition – he is a persuasive reader of the history of theology – and spiritual depth5. There is one respect, however, in which his neo-scholastic opponents undoubtedly had the advantage: they held to a position which was much easier to understand, whose consistency and coherence were clear. One way of reading the Surnaturel controversy, then, is that in Catholic theology if one wishes to have a clear, straight-forward, paradox-free account of nature and grace, it is possible to do so – one can construct a fully comprehensible system of the relation between the natural and the supernatural. One can do this, however, only at the cost of a kind of sterility, and only if one is willing to operate with a certain of deafness to the longer tradition. Some Catholic theology avoids any hint of paradox here, I am suggesting, but the best Catholic theology does not. Lest such an analysis seem overly dependent on one line of argument from Henri de Lubac, it is worth briefly considering one further example, that of Karl Rahner. One of Rahner’s earliest works, appearing a few years before de Lubac’s Surnaturel, is Encounters with Silence, a set of ten brief prayers6. These prayers offer, of course, no technical exploration of the nature/grace relationship, but in them one can detect a distinctive nature/grace pattern of thought. One way to summarise the prayers is as a series of dialogues between two characters, an “I” and a “You”, where “I” is full of complaints and laments, and “You” is depicted in various ways, but above all as infinite, ungraspable, and silent. Much of the drama in these prayers revolves around a sense of struggle, of wrestling, between the I and the You, often depicted precisely as a struggle of the finite and the infinite: “why do you torment me with your infinity”, writes Rahner, “if I can never really measure it? Why do You constrain me to walk along Your paths, if they lead only to the awful darkness of Your night, where only You can see?”7. What is worth noting is that while many of the images used in relation to God might, taken in themselves, seem to have an impersonal quality J. HILLEBERT (ed.), The T&T Clark Companion to Henri de Lubac, London, Bloomsbury, 2017, 181-204. For a broader discussion, see S. BONINO (ed.), Surnaturel: A Controversy at the Heart of Twentieth-Century Thomistic Thought (Faith and Reason: Studies in Catholic Theology and Philosophy), Ave Maria, FL, Sapientia Press Ave Maria University, 2009. 5. This is in any case my reading of the controversy, and one which is shared by many contemporary Catholic theologians, though admittedly not by all. 6. K. RAHNER, Encounters with Silence, South Bend, IN, St. Augustine Press, 1999. 7. Ibid., pp. 4-5.

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– infinity, endlessness, unapproachable brightness and so on – they are presented precisely in the context of addressing a “You”. We find written into these prayers both the presumption that God is utterly ungraspable, infinite, boundless, incomprehensible; and that the “I” is in an immediate, intimate, intense relationship with God. It is this constantly present tension which gives much of the power and interest to these prayers. And once one attends to this tension, one can see it returning at key moments in Rahner’s subsequent theology – and can see that it is, essentially, a nature-grace tension. God, in the language of the later Rahner, is the ungraspable horizon towards which all our acts of knowing and willing are ultimately directed – this much the philosopher can know, on his account, because this much is written into human nature – but in grace the horizon draws near, and communicates itself. What does this mean? What could it possibly mean – how can one think of a selfcommunicating horizon, or a horizon which remains a horizon while also being “God of absolute closeness and immediacy”8? Rahner, who works so carefully to unpack so many ideas, leaves us without help any real help in reconciling the images he offers. My suggestion is that the tension Rahner generates here is not incidental or accidental but deliberate. These rather paradoxical patterns are precisely the right kind of patterns with which to talk about the nature-grace relationship. There is a proclivity towards paradox in the sin/grace opposition in Protestant thought, or at least in one recognisable strand of Protestant thought, and there is a proclivity towards paradox in the nature/grace complementarity of Catholic thought, or at least in what I take to be the better examples of Catholic theology. My proposal is not that there is necessarily a contradiction on either side, but that in both camps we find a tendency to hold certain patterns of thought, certain patterns of affirmation, together, un-synthesised, rather than force them into a single, fully articulable, fully graspable, unity. II. PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC PATTERNS: A CASE STUDY Let us turn now to a case study: the recent work of Kathryn Tanner. Christ the Key, Tanner’s sixth book, offers a confirmation of the enduring nature of the Protestant-Catholic divide – and it does so precisely as it seeks to lay out an understanding of grace which can bridge this divide. 8. K. RAHNER, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. W.V. DYCH, New York, Crossroad, 1989 (1976), p. 129.

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Tanner sets out to work in a traditionally Catholic pattern, a naturegrace rather than a sin-grace pattern, but to do this in a way which “accords quite well with Protestant sensibilities”9. Within a Catholic framework, she wants to show, in other words, that it is possible to come up with something that can suit Protestant instincts. What she offers is fascinating, drawing, in a way which is typical of much of Tanner’s work on familiar aspects of the tradition even as she unfolds a position which is fresh and somehow unfamiliar. It is an account of grace which not only aims to satisfy Protestant instincts while working from a broadly Catholic framework, but which also, Tanner argues, has the capacity to escape the recurring difficulties into which Catholic theology itself falls in trying to defend the integrity of nature and the freedom of grace. In fact, however, in reworking the nature-grace pattern in such a way that it can make sense to Protestants, Tanner ends up transforming natureand-grace language into something fundamentally dissonant with Catholic sensibilities. Though she speaks of nature and grace, that is to say, she in effect reproduces a sin-grace pattern, with its characteristic moment of tension around needing to both affirm and deny the efficacy of grace. Tanner may indeed, as she implies, have found a way to get rid of the lump under the carpet where Catholics tend to have a problem with it, but the lump nevertheless makes itself felt in a more typically Protestant location. When we think about human nature, Tanner proposes, we should think about its plasticity: “what is of theological interest” in human nature is its “lack of given definition, its malleability through outside influences, unbounded character, and general openness to radical transformation”10. Nature is essentially undetermined. More particularly, she holds that humans are so designed to require grace – they need, for their proper functioning, “to have within themselves something which they are not”11: “Our faculties were made to operate as they should, to operate well, only when incorporating what remains alien to them, the very perfection of Word and Spirit themselves”12. Human nature, in the absence of grace, is not just not-quite-what-it-could-be, containing perhaps some unfulfilled longing: human nature in the absence of grace is fundamentally lost. And this is true even if we do not introduce any particular consideration of sin: nature without grace is lost, not because sin has in 9. TANNER, Christ (n. 2), p. 58. 10. Ibid., p. 1. 11. Ibid., p. 22. 12. Ibid., p. 28.

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some way wounded it, but simply because we were never designed to work properly except in dependence on that which is beyond us, on grace. One might think of the relationship of a petrol-driven lawnmower to the fuel which powers it. It is not that there is a natural fuel, and then some special extra high octane fuel which corresponds to an elevation in grace, but rather that it is the nature of the lawnmower to rely on something beyond itself, something which is not part of the machinery itself, in order to be able to work. The fact that without the petrol the lawnmower goes nowhere is not a sign that it has endured any particular damage, that it has sustained some particular distortion to its original nature, but that it was never, from its origins, designed to run without fuel13. Tanner’s novel patterning of nature and grace is likely to jar with typical Catholic sensibilities on several counts. The goodness of nature can be affirmed here only in a severely limited way – in itself it is good as a necessary stage towards something else, but no more than that. Without grace, as Tanner puts it in one place, human nature “seems utterly wrecked”14. She works with the concept of nature, but by making it so malleable, incomplete and needy, she seems, from a Catholic perspective, to have obscured its goodness just as surely as if she were operating with a more typically Protestant sin-and-grace perspective. And then there is the frequent emphasis on the alien-ness of grace to nature. Again and again, grace is referred to as that which we are not: “what makes our lives good”, Tanner writes, to give one example, “is not anything we are ourselves but the presence within us of what we are not”15; “we are not good in virtue of what we are but of what we are not”16; “our faculties were made to operate as they should, to operate well, only when incorporating what remains alien to them”17; Christ remains “foreign” to us even when present to us18. Tanner is of course perfectly aware that she is deploying nature-grace language in a way that is at odds with typical Catholic instincts. So, for 13. The lawnmower analogy is mine rather than Tanner’s, and is partially misleading because lawnmowers do not partake in our “plasticity”. Furthermore, without grace, we are not exactly like a lawnmower without fuel: it is not exactly that we would not move at all, would not do anything at all. It is just that without grace, on Tanner’s account, we have no particular inclination to move in the right direction. Human nature was just never designed to work properly without a reliance on that which comes from beyond, on grace. 14. Ibid., p. 109. 15. Ibid., pp. 76-77. 16. Ibid., p. 77. 17. Ibid., p. 28. 18. Ibid., p. 102.

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instance, within her system it can be affirmed that grace completes or perfects nature, but she points out that the statement does not serve, as it does in Catholic theology, as a way to “emphasis[e] the value of creation, which the gift of God’s grace respects”. Instead, the phrase, as deployed by Tanner, serves to point out “the inadequacies that essentially mar [nature] and that account for God’s own dissatisfaction with it”19; She is well aware that this will be, to Catholic ears, an uneasy deployment of the language of nature and grace. But part of her argument is that this Protestantizing, as one might call it, of the nature/grace pattern has the advantage of escaping from the difficulties that have plagued Catholic discussions in the area. Tanner argues at some length that since its rejection of the neoscholastic notion of a more or less self-enclosed pure nature, Catholic thought has not been able to find a satisfactory way of showing that nature has an orientation towards grace while also defending grace’s gratuity. Theologians have felt they needed to protect the latter, the gratuity of grace, by holding onto the idea that some sort of reasonable human life would in principle be possible without it, but then have wanted to stave off extrinsiscism by inserting into their understanding of such a life “the natural desire for the supernatural”. Tanner enumerates a series of difficulties this has led to20. In her own scheme, by contrast, there is no need to posit a “natural desire for the supernatural” because there is never any question that any sort of a reasonable human life could be possible without grace. There is no natural desire for the supernatural, one might say, but instead just a complete mess if nature is deprived of the supernatural. She can still offer a defence of the gratuity of grace, but it comes, she argues, from a completely different angle – not through any thought experiment about the sufficiency of a purely natural existence, but through attention to what grace itself is, which is so other to everything creaturely that it could never be anything but unexacted, free, gratuitous. What Tanner is suggesting, then, is that she has found a way to make the typical Catholic lump under the carpet go away. If one rethinks nature and grace along these radical, Protestantised lines, one can simply bypass the recurring tensions, disputes and difficulties in Catholic thought. Interestingly, though, when Tanner turns to the question of what effects on our actual, experienced lives the grace of Christ might have, a different set of tensions and difficulties starts to make itself 19. Ibid., p. 61. 20. Ibid., pp. 106-126.

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manifest. At some moments, Tanner writes of the experienced consequences of grace in a very positive mode. As a result of the Incarnation, she suggests, our situation changes radically: “what we are given in Christ so adheres to us as to amount to a kind of redone internal constitution. Via the hypostatic union, we are wrapped around with something we cannot get rid of, something that therefore inevitably makes itself felt in all that we go on to become”21. The gift of the Spirit is the flip side of attachment to Christ, through which comes genuine sanctification, “Actual renovation of our lives”, through which, in a progressive manner, “we begin to do good to our fellow creatures”22. At other points, however, it seems the situation is a little more complicated: having affirmed progressive sanctification on one page, on the next she writes, “nothing has necessarily happened to change our human character. The immediate impression made on us is a divine rather than a human one: it amounts to the presence of the Holy Spirit itself”23. So a bifurcation seems to be opening up in her portrait of the justified Christian. There is the divine level, where everything happens all at once – the presence of the Holy Spirit itself – and then the human level, which has no fixed correlation with this. So she writes that “The Holy Spirit may be genuinely given to us, present within us, even when that fact is not made visible in our changed dispositions and deeds”, and that it is possible to “have the Spirit for our own in virtue of our attachment to Christ without drawing upon it”24. All this is perhaps summed up with her statement that “one must carefully distinguish the holiness of the divine Spirit itself [which is ‘in’ us, in virtue of our justification] from any holiness of ours that is its consequence”25. So it seems imaginable, on Tanner’s account, that a person can be not only justified but sanctified, in virtue of the presence within them of the Holy Spirit, and yet nothing whatsoever is changed in the concrete pattern of their life or in the nature of their experience26. Tanner’s reflection on nature and grace, then, is a fascinating thought experiment in the possibility of overcoming deep divides between certain typically Protestant and Catholic thought patterns, but an experiment which in the end tends to confirm the persisting power of these differences. 21. Ibid., p. 72. 22. Ibid., p. 87. 23. Ibid., p. 89. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid., p. 90. 26. This seems to be a Protestant version of the neo-scholastic extrinsicism which Karl Rahner so frequently attacked, where grace can occur in some sense behind our backs, on some other plane entirely than the plane of our conscious, lived experience.

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Discussions of grace can risk appearing obscure and technical: one can begin to wonder whether theologians twist themselves into knots over issues which do not on a practical level make any difference. It is partly for this reason that I want to consider a final example, Tanner’s 2016 Gifford lectures, published in 2019 as Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism27. The starting point for these Gifford lectures is Max Weber’s famous thesis about the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Tanner’s project is both a tribute to Weber and an exercise in turning him on his head. Tanner endorses Weber’s method of working with ideal types, agrees with his key premise that religious beliefs “have the capacity to provide powerful psychological sanctions for economic behaviour”28, and admires his instinct to undermine the inevitable, natural-seeming quality of the capitalism of his time. So in various ways she follows Weber. The overall goal of her project, however, is not to link the spirit of capitalism to a Protestant work ethic, but just the reverse: to undermine the spirit of capitalism with a Christian or Protestant anti-work ethic. In successive chapters, Tanner isolates key features of the spirit of our contemporary finance-dominated capitalism, especially as concerns its relation to time and the way it shapes the self, and then shows how Christian belief, or a certain style of Christian belief, offers a radically opposed alternative. The characteristically Protestant tension between claiming that grace changes everything, and that grace changes nothing at all, makes itself felt in this project on two levels. It makes itself felt, first of all, at particular moments in the text. In the second chapter, for instance, Tanner contrasts a feature of contemporary capitalism according to which the past controls and in a sense sucks all life and possibility out of present and future – because of the role that both debt and target setting play – with a Christian vision according to which the past is utterly repudiated, where that which has organised one’s whole life in the past (i.e. sin) is entirely renounced. The relationship to the past is conceived according to notions of radical disjunction, rather than as a gradual process of present and future evolving out of past, and even less as past controlling, determining and limiting the future. If, however, we put this notion of radical disjunction and radical repudiation together with the proposition, which Tanner also affirms, that the moment of conversion is constantly re-initiated in the Christian life, that being in this moment of a break with the past is the constant state of a Christian, we seem to have something 27. TANNER, Christianity (n. 3). 28. Ibid., p. 4.

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of a puzzle. There is an absolute contrast between before and after, and yet after can never actually come, because one is always beginning again in the moment of absolute repudiation of the past. This seems to mean that while grace, the action of God, makes all the difference in us, it may also make no discernible difference whatsoever. The second level to consider is that of the project as a whole. It is all about setting up a radical opposition – between a total package, an all-consuming logic, of finance dominated capitalism, and an utterly contrasting vision of self and time derived from Christian faith. There are several things that one does not find as part of the mix here. First, there is no account offered of an underlying good of which finance-dominated capitalism is a distortion, nor of any partial goods in our current economic order. Secondly, there is nothing like a concrete plan of action offered – no suggestion of ways in which we might resist, reform, undo global capitalism, or even begin to do so, take any steps in this direction. Nor does one find, thirdly, any attention given to already existing concrete practices of resistance, to the possibility that there may be pockets of life that are governed otherwise than by the capitalist system. There is the stark contrast between finance-dominated capitalism and the Christian vision, and nothing which acts as any kind of bridge or connection between them. None of these points are intended as criticism. And each of the absences I mentioned can be understood in a number of ways. Tanner – and many others – would probably say that it is the nature of the current capitalism to engulf, to swallow up, to reabsorb all particular attempts to resist it, forcing its own logic on them, so that only a radically alien thought pattern has any hope of piercing its totality, and any currently imaginable and concrete suggestions would be doomed to failure. The absence of attention to already existing spheres of resistance might also be a result of not trying to do everything in one book: Tanner is a thinker who operates at a relatively high level of abstraction, and has deliberately focused the project around ideal types rather than around any sort of search for exceptions. If it is true, however, that these absences can be explained in terms of the nature of contemporary capitalism and the nature of the project Tanner undertakes, it is important also to notice how consonant they all are with a distinctively Protestant style of thought around sin and grace. What we are given is a sharp contrast, a contrast made as sharp as it possibly can be, between the economic system and the Christian vision, and no way of bringing the two together, no hint of how the grace of Christ is already making a difference, or how it could possibly make a difference. It makes all the difference, but there is a distinct hesitation to consider how it makes any particular difference.

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III. CONCLUSION: AN ENDURING LEGACY OF THE REFORMATION Alongside questions of formal doctrinal condemnation or reconciliation, then, there are also questions of theological style: questions about where the focus and the emphasis is placed, where the intellectual tensions are endured. At this level, it is not clear that we are seeing Protestant and Catholic theology moving closer to one another. Indeed, we need not suppose that convergence, at this level, is a goal. The ongoing dualism of theological styles may rather be one of the gifts of the Reformation. It can be a difficult gift to live with at times, insofar as one tends to find the tension or paradoxes of the other side troubling, while finding those of one’s own side natural and obviously necessary, but it remains, nevertheless, a gift. Durham University Department of Theology and Religion Abbey House Palace Green Durham, DH1 3RS UK [email protected]

Karen KILBY

PLURALITY AS “THE GRACE OF SECULARITY” REFORM, GOD’S TRANSCENDENCE, AND THE HORIZONS OF OTHERNESS

I. FROM SOLA GRATIA

TO THE

“ECLIPSE OF GRACE”

In A Secular Age, his landmark account of the emergence of secularity, Charles Taylor identifies an overarching dynamic of “Reform” – of which the sixteenth-century Protestant and Catholic Reformations embody particular manifestations – as the most potent force fashioning “secularity” in its varied guises1. His account indicates how movements promoting reforms in, for, and across a broad range of human attitudes, beliefs, and practices helped to shape the “social imaginary”2 in accord with which Western secularity delimits and interprets human social existence. Fundamental to the social imaginary of secularity is what Taylor describes as the “immanent frame”, which establishes and licenses boundaries for meaning and interpretation that function in the context of the social worlds of modernity’s autonomously construed human agents. This immanent frame is formed by the intersections of the self-sufficient orders of explanation, justification, and practice that have emerged in and from Western modernity’s efforts to understand and to control the 1. Taylor takes “secularity” to refer to at least three major historical and cultural phenomena that have emerged in and with “modernity”. “Secularity 1” pertains to an altered role of religion in the public realm. This role is marked by various legal and political arrangements that constitute the separation of Church and state and often is accompanied by a relegation of religion to the “private” sphere; “Secularity 2” refers to an observable decline of formal religious practice and affiliation that has most notably taken place in many countries in the North Atlantic basin; “Secularity 3” consists in what Taylor terms the “altered conditions for belief” in which there is no longer a commonly shared presupposition that there is a (transcendent) God (C. TAYLOR, A Secular Age, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2007, pp. 1-4). Engaging the emergence and functioning of “Secularity 3” constitutes the primary focus for the account Taylor provides in A Secular Age. 2. He describes a “social imaginary” as “the ways in which [people] imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations which are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations” (ibid., p. 171). He provides extended treatments of the features and workings of social imaginaries, particularly in reference to the emergence of the social imaginaries formative and expressive of secularity in Chapter 4 of Secular Age, “Modern Social Imaginaries”, pp. 157-218 and in C. TAYLOR, Modern Social Imaginaries, Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2004.

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workings of the world. In these efforts, an affirmation of a transcendent, personal God no longer functions, as it had done in pre-modernity, as a presupposed condition for the intelligibility, truth, and meaning of such self-sufficient orders. This immanent frame thus stands in contrast to the prior imaginary that framed the social existence and functioning of “Christendom” for a millennium. Within that social imaginary, everyone and everything was unquestionably taken to stand in relation to one another within the hierarchical cosmic and human orders dependent upon a transcendent God. That dependence encompassed the intelligibility, truth, and meaning of those orders, as well as their ultimate historical trajectory toward a final completion in which an enduring and integral harmony overcomes the disruptive powers of otherness, plurality, and difference. This account of the emergence of secularity in terms of what Taylor calls a “Master Reform Narrative” provides the backdrop for this essay’s exploration of one inflection of the dynamism of God’s agency that Christian theology terms “grace”. Disputes over the meaning and scope of that dynamism, particularly as it bears upon the character and workings of human and of divine agency, were central to shaping the trajectories of reform (and resistance to reform) that powerfully emerged in the early sixteenth century. It would not be too great an exaggeration to claim that these contending theological construals of grace, and of the divine and human agency in which grace is operative, provided one of the torches with which Luther and other reformers ignited the tinder of the ecclesial, social, and political circumstances of their time. The empowering origins of this social and cultural conflagration arose in theological and religiously framed contention internal to a then unified Western Christendom. It played a key role in turning that unity to embers and ashes. It is a generally well-recognized irony of Western history that the cultures of modernity and secularity that emerged out of those embers eventually displaced the doctrines and the social forms and practices of the now divided Christian churches from what previously had been a central role in the ordering of society and in the formation of its culture3. Charles Taylor is by no means the first interpreter of that history to note and to articulate this overarching irony of the religious origin of the social displacement of religion in the dynamics of an emergent secular order. Within the framework of this larger irony, however, there

3. For another reading of the dynamics of “reform” that, in contrast to Taylor’s, sees its consequences as (almost) uniformly negative, see B.S. GREGORY, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society, Cambridge, MA, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.

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are a number of more particular ironies at work in Taylor’s account of the dynamics by which Reform helped to engender secularity. Two of these will be of particular importance for this essay. The first irony lies in the outcome that eventually ensued from “Reform” for the status, function, and intelligibility of the concept of grace with respect to understanding and interpreting human activity. From the perspective of the immanent frame of secularity, what emerged in the wake of the conflagration ignited, at least in part, in the name of sola gratia, was, five centuries later, a construal of the workings of the world and of human existence in the world that obviated any need to invoke grace as an efficacious element in human activity4. Reform in the name of sola gratia, instead of providing a field cleansed of obstacles put up by sinful human agency so that the workings of grace would stand undeniably as markers of divine work, resulted in something quite different: a closed world order in which neither the workings of the natural world, nor those of the human socio-cultural world, leave room for the recognition of any item, of any event, or of any activity that is in and of the world as a manifestation of a divinely initiated “grace”. According to the standard “subtraction” narrative that the immanent frame offers to account for the emergence of secularity, such sidelining of grace is one inevitable (and by no means lamentable) consequence of the rise of science and the instrumental rationalization of social organization that are fundamental to modernity. In concert, these forces for modernization have worked to relegate religious belief and practice to the sphere of private subjectivity, thus rendering any concept of Christian “grace” otiose by evacuating it of any publicly accessible significance for understanding and interpreting human activity arising from and interacting with the world5. Reform, initiated in

4. This irony of contrary outcome is, not surprisingly, similarly to that described by Michael J. Buckley as the result of the apologetic strategy Catholic theologians in seventeenth-century France adopted for engaging and refuting a nascent atheism. Their employment of a religious epoché that “bracketed Christian religious experience as cognitively irrelevant to the issues raised by a putative atheism” did not succeed in its aim of vanquishing the arguments against belief; instead, it eventually “allowed an unprecedented atheism to emerge in the West, an atheism that eventually became the fastest growing religious movement of the past two hundred years” (M.J. BUCKLEY, The Rise of Modern Atheism and the Religious Epoché, Presidential Address CTSA Proceedings 1992, pp. 71, 72-73); for Buckley’s extended account of this process and its outcome, see At the Origins of Modern Atheism, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1987; and its sequel Denying and Disclosing God: The Ambiguous Progress of Modern Atheism, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2004. 5. Religion, moreover, is not the only human activity relegated to a realm of “subjectivity”; all forms of art are similarly consigned, and at least in some renderings of the immanent frame so are most accounts of morality.

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the name and in the cause of gratia, set in motion an eventual erasure of any place or need for grace in the working of the world or in human interaction in and with the world. The second irony, which is not unrelated to the first, arises from the fact that, even as the irrelevance and unintelligibility of grace became pervasively embedded into the background of much of the culture of secularity, discussions of grace continued along a trajectory following coordinates marking, with occasional polemical inflections, intramural Christian concerns. While these intra-Christian arguments were not unaware of the eclipse of grace that was unfolding in significant parts of the larger culture, their coordinates continued to be determined, for the most part, by the issues conceptualized and thematized in the matrix of the great Reformation controversies, such as those noted in the second conference theme: “The tensile relationship between sin, grace, free will, justification and sanctification”. Those discussions continued to have a bearing, at times quite urgent, upon the modalities of life and practice of Latin Catholicism as well as upon the now multiple forms of ecclesial community emergent from the Reformation, particularly as those communities defined themselves and their formative practices over against one another. Yet amid these often sharply controverted intra- and interecclesial disputes about the character and the working of grace6, particularly as ingredient in the dynamics of human salvation, attention was only occasionally paid to the bearing these conversations had upon understanding and engaging the phenomenon of the growing eclipse of grace within the horizon of an ambient culture becoming “secularized” in various modes and degrees. So even though these discussions of grace were framed in their initial contexts primarily through the optic of concerns shaped in the Reformation, they can in hindsight now be seen also to have a bearing upon understanding the dynamics of what emerged, in Taylor terms, as secularity’s “conditions of belief”7. When viewed from an optic attentive to the workings and emergence of secularity, instructive lessons for contemporary efforts to engage the eclipse of grace more directly may thus be

6. Notable instances of such disputes concerned (on the Catholic side) Jansenism and the related De auxiliis controversies associated with positions articulated by Domingo Báñez, OP, and Luis Molina, SJ, and (on the Calvinist side) the controversies over Arminianism. 7. One intriguing question here is the extent to which the continued intramural focus in these discussions was in some part a consequence theology’s implicit acceptance of the disciplinary “disembedding” and compartmentalization that the dynamics of secularity effected in Western intellectual culture.

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gleaned from the study of a number of these intramural Christian disputes and conversations. Among them would be the Jansenist and Arminian controversies, or Catholic theology’s (mostly adversarial) relationship throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the currents of “modern philosophy” from Descartes though Kant and into later German Idealism. Just as pertinent would be the varied ways in which modern and contemporary methods of biblical scholarship have been received (or not received) among both Protestant and Catholic ecclesial communities and their respective forms of theological scholarship. Of import also have been various iterations of a “death of God” theology that, arising from roots nurtured in the nineteenth century and given impetus by the scope of the death and devastation humans inflicted upon one another in the first half of the twentieth century, came to public as well as academic prominence in the nineteen-sixties. At stake in these controversies, at times explicitly, at other times as a subtext, were matters touching upon the character, the scope, and the operation of grace in creation, in human agency and in human history – the very dynamics made problematic by the eclipse of grace8. In retrospect, it could be plausibly claimed that the mid-twentieth century emergence of “death of God” theologies, along with related lines of philosophical and theological engagement with various forms of theoretical and practical atheism through much of the twentieth century, put in place the final lens needed to provide an explicit focus upon addressing the deeply problematic status into which grace had been rendered in the cultures of secularity. II. REPOSITIONING THE DISCOURSE OF GRACE: PLURALITY, OTHERNESS, AND DIFFERENCE It is thus against the background of, on the one hand, the sidelining of grace within the immanent frame of secularity and, on the other, a continued intramural focus in the theological articulation of grace, that 8. Taylor characterizes “the eclipse of grace” as the second of four related “anthropocentric shifts” that get underway in the emergence of “providential deism”. The first shift involves the reduction of a sense of further purpose to God’s creation beyond that of the achievement of human good: what we owe God is “essentially the achievement of our own good”. In the third shift “the sense of mystery fades”, particularly with respect to the mysteries “of evil, of our estrangement from God, and the inability to return to him unaided”. The fourth shift comprises “the eclipse of the idea that God was planning a transformation of human beings … beyond the limitations which inhere in their present conditions … a ‘becoming’ divine that was part of human destiny” (Secular Age [n. 1], pp. 222-224).

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this paper will argue for an important conceptual “repositioning” of the coordinates for Christian theology’s discussions of grace, one which would more directly address and engage the eclipse of grace9. This repositioning has its basis precisely in what Taylor has denoted as “Secularity 3”, insofar as it provides a common cultural locus that delimits the “conditions of belief” for articulating both belief and unbelief and for exploring possibilities for their engagement with one another. Within this locus, the coordinates for the repositioning I am proposing are those marked out by two of the key characteristics of secularity’s altered “conditions of belief”. First, there is no longer a commonly shared presupposition that there is a transcendent God whose activity can be appropriately recognized as “grace”; and second, there is a dynamic of plurality operative throughout the landscape of belief and unbelief within which articulations of grace must now be made. This plurality is manifest in the two related phenomena that Taylor denotes as “the nova effect”10 of plural spiritual options and as the “fragilization”11 of belief; it is operative as well as in the more general dynamics of fragmentation that Taylor diagnosed, in Sources of the Self, as “fractured horizons” and “the conflicts of modernity”12 and later, in A Secular Age,

9. I am using the notion of “repositioning” as a rough counterpart to “re-composition”, a term employed (in tandem with “decomposition”) by the sociologist Danièle Hervieu-Léger to designate the interactive processes transforming religion in particular contexts of secularity (D. HERVIEU-LÉGER – G. DAVIE [eds.], Identités religieuses en Europe, Paris, La Découverte, 1996). Taylor applies this term in discussing a number of particular instances in which he sees that Christian thinking and practice have moved constructively and creatively in response to the concrete conditions of secularity; see C. TAYLOR, “Disenchantment and Secularity”, The Berkeley Center Lectures 2008, “Narratives of Secularity”, Lecture II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Hy31vv3uY; his discussion of “re-composition” can be found between 13m30s-17m45s on the video timing. 10. He describes the origin and impact of the “nova effect” as “The positing of a humanist alternative … spawned an ever widening variety of moral and spiritual options across the span of the thinkable and even beyond … we are now living in a spiritual supernova, a kind of galloping pluralism on the spiritual plane” (Secular Age [n. 1], pp. 299300). 11. As Taylor describes it, “fragilization” is a phenomenon rooted in dynamics by which the “strangeness” of world view inhabited by the religious “other” – including the other of non-belief – no longer stands as “really inconceivable” for me, in part because the cultures of modernity have lessened the differences of other kinds between us. The religious other has become “more and more like me, in everything else but faith. Then the issue posed by difference becomes more insistent: why my way and not hers?” (cf. ibid., pp. 303-304; 531-532). 12. C. TAYLOR, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, Chapter 18, “Fractured Horizons”, 305-320, and Chapter 25, “Conclusion: The Conflicts of Modernity”, 495-521.

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as the “cross-pressures” and “dilemmas”13 that disrupt the self-enclosure of the immanent frame from within. In order to articulate the repositioning that is needed here, it is important to see how the altered conditions of belief and the dynamics of plurality, as characteristics of secularity, first, are “nested” within one another and, second, how that nesting points to the importance of “otherness” as a crucial horizon for re-engaging a theology of grace with the dynamics of the immanent social imaginary of secularity. Taylor provides a useful initial clue to the nesting of these two characteristics when, at the end of A Secular Age, he underlines the importance of the Axial Age for the “Master Reform Narrative” he has developed: There is another important piece [of the story behind secularity], which deals with the thrust to complete the Axial revolution; I mean Reform, which strives to end the post-Axial equilibrium, that is the balance and complementarity between pre- and post-Axial elements in all higher civilizations14.

As I understand this somewhat cryptic allusion to his earlier discussion of the Axial Age, Taylor is referencing its role in what he terms “The Great Disembedding” that was an important prelude to the emergence of a secular age15. On his account, the Axial Age, that “extraordinary period in the last millennium B.C.E., when various ‘higher’ forms of religion appeared seemingly independently in different civilizations, marked by such founding figures as Confucius, Gautama, Socrates, the Hebrew prophets”, brought about a radically changed stance toward the human good16. This changed stance came about in consequence of the breaks that Axial religions initiated in what had been, in the social imaginaries of pre-Axial religions, the thorough embedding of human life and activity in a human social order that itself was thoroughly embedded in the cosmos. In such social imaginaries, moreover, the divine reality that was implicated in the structures and workings of the cosmos was principally 13. See Secular Age (n. 1), Chapters 16-18, 594-710. In Chapters 23-24, 419-493, of Sources (n. 12) he provides an earlier articulation of these disruptive dynamics in terms of the post-Romantic “immanent revolt” found in the literature and art of modernism and expressivism. 14. Secular Age (n. 1), p. 774. 15. The term “Axial Age” was introduced by K. JASPERS in Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte, Zürich, Artemis, 1949; ET: The Origin and the Goal of History, trans. M. BULLOCK, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1953. Taylor’s overview of the key consequences that have their origin in the axial age can be found in C. TAYLOR, What Was the Axial Revolution?, in Dilemmas and Connections: Selected Essays, Cambridge, MA, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011, 367-379. 16. Secular Age (n. 1), p. 151.

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construed not, as the “Axial revolution” would have it, in terms of a radically transcendent otherness, but rather in terms of its relation – be it benevolent, hostile, or indifferent – to a horizon of human good and flourishing17. This break, which Taylor sees occurring in “all three dimensions of embeddedness: social order, cosmos, and human good”, was effected in virtue of “the revisionary stance toward the human good [that was taken] in Axial religions”18. This stance was revisionary in that it opened possibilities for conceiving of a “good beyond human flourishing”, a good that relativizes human flourishing. This displacement of human flourishing from its role as the central measure of good then had the consequence that “both the transcendent and the human good are reconceived in the process”19. Following Francis Oakley, Taylor further notes that, with respect to this Axial “revolution”, “the break point which was particularly fateful for how these possibilities subsequently played out in the West was the rupture, as it were, at the top, the Jewish idea of what (we now call) creation ex nihilo, which took God quite out of the cosmos, and placed him above it”20. Taylor’s articulation here of the reconceiving of transcendence set in motion by the Axial age unsurprisingly uses spatial imagery to present the rupture that took place. It consisted in taking God “out” of the cosmos and placing God “above” it. I believe, however, that it will be useful to avoid, as best one can, reliance on such spatially referenced terms to characterize the relation in which “Axially” re-conceived transcendence bears on the non-transcendence of the cosmos and human good. What would thus be needed is a coordinate re-imaging and re-articulation of how the transcendent stands in relation to the non-transcendent in the light of the “rupture” that Oakley sees marked by creation ex nihilo. Such re-imaging and re-articulation could thus provide a basis for effecting a conceptual repositioning of discussions of grace that could directly engage the eclipse of grace that overshadows the cultures of secularity. Instead of such spatially referenced language as “above” and “below” or “outside” and “inside”, such discussions might be better framed for this purpose by being referenced to accounts of transcendence that employ language indexed to “otherness” and “difference” – terms that, it could be argued, may have already become indicative of the kind

17. 18. 19. 20.

Ibid., Chapter 3. Ibid., pp. 151-152. Ibid., p. 152. Ibid.

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of repositioning needed here, inasmuch as they have prominently come into play as currents within the “cross pressures” that Taylor sees pushing against secularity’s self-enclosure within immanence. In particular, I am proposing that this kind of imaginative and linguistic repositioning would be consonant with employment of characterization of transcendence as the radical difference between God and the world that is signaled in what Taylor calls the “Jewish idea of what (we now call) creation ex nihilo”. The specific characterization I am proposing here is one that David Burrell has developed on the basis of the synthesis that he sees Aquinas forging in his grappling with the efforts of his Jewish and Arab predecessors, most notably Maimonides and Ibn-Sina, to provide a grammar for speaking properly of the freedom with which God creates ex nihilo. In that synthesis, speaking properly of both divine freedom and of human freedom requires recognition of the radicality of the difference between God and the world that is inscribed in the understanding of the singularity of the divine activity for which creation ex nihilo stands as a dramatic conceptual and linguistic gesture. On Burrell’s account, creation, in relation to God, may thus be construed as “original grace”21: It comes entirely from the originating divine activity with which God, in the abundance of (uncompelled) divine freedom, both brings the “world” – all that is, has been, and will be as other than God – into being as good and sustains the world and the world’s goodness in its otherness to/from God. This account further requires a way of characterizing their relationality, within the recognition of the radicality of the difference between God and the world, so that divine freedom and human freedom do not stand, as they eventually do in consequence of Providential Deism, in “zero-sum” competition to one another. Burrell takes such a characterization to be one that, in the manner of the proposal for a metaphysic of “nondualism” that Sara Grant draws from Śańkara, the seminal thinker of Advaita Vedanta (ca. eighth century CE), opens the possibility of an intelligible, non-contrastive account of the relation between, on one hand, divine agency and freedom and, on the other, human agency and freedom22. 21. See D.B. BURRELL, Creation as Original Grace, in P.J. ROSSI (ed.), God, Grace, and Creation, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 2010, 97-106 for a succinct discussion of the manner in which creation may be construed as “grace” in its very origin from God’s agency. Burrell offers more extended historical and conceptual articulations of this in D.B. BURRELL, Knowing the Unknowable God, Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 1986 and Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions, Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 1993. 22. See S. GRANT, Toward an Alternative Theology: Confessions of a Non-Dualist Christian, Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 2002.

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On Burrell’s account, such a characterization marks the abundant gratuity of the divine activity of freely creating while respecting and preserving the distinction between God and the creation that God freely originates. Following Robert Sokolowski, Burrell terms this “the distinction”. In Sokolowski’s articulation it is …a distinction between the world understood as possibly not having existed and God being understood as possibly being all that there is, with no diminution of goodness or greatness. It is not the case that God and the world are each separately understood in this new way, and only subsequently related to each other; they are determined in the distinction, not each apart from the other23.

Burrell provides a helpful gloss on “the distinction” by noting that it …sets up an utterly unique philosophico-linguistic situation. For it means that we cannot speak of God and the world as parallel entities, nor can we use merely contrastive language when speaking of God from the viewpoint of the world. In short, we are thereby invited to a specific view of the transcendence of God and the doctrine of creation, as espoused by Jews and Christians, as well as Muslims, addresses that defining feature of divinity as well24.

Burrell makes coordinate claims here – i.e., first that we are “invited to a specific view of the transcendence of God”, and second that “the [Jewish-Christian-Muslim] doctrine of creation addresses that defining feature of divinity as well”. These two claims can help to elucidate what Taylor references as “the fateful rupture” that the syntax of creation ex nihilo occasioned in its “taking God quite out of the cosmos”, with a resultant radical and disruptive reconceiving of transcendence and of the non-transcendent as created ex nihilo. These two claims each mark out how framing an account of creation ex nihilo (which Burrell takes to have been most astutely proposed by Aquinas) in terms of what Sara Grant identifies as “the relation of creation and the ultimate Source of all being as a non-reciprocal dependence relation”25, radically transforms the concept and the syntax of transcendence; it transforms them in a way that 23. R. SOKOLOWSKI, The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology, with a New Preface, Washington, DC, The Catholic University of America Press, 1995, p. 23 (emphasis added). He provides an alternate articulation on p. x: “The Christian God is presented as so transcendent to the world that he could be, in undiminished goodness and greatness, even if the world were not. The Christian God can be distinguished from the world in this radical way. Only because God is so independent of the world can we say that he created the world out of sheer generosity, not out of any sort of need”. 24. BURRELL, Freedom and Creation (n. 21), p. 9 (emphasis added). 25. The expression is from Sara Grant, Towards an Alternative Theology, p. 40, which Burrell quotes in Creation as Original Grace (n. 21), p. 104.

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makes it possible to affirm divine freedom and human freedom in non-contrastive, non-competitive terms. Such an account does so by bringing to the fore the radicality of the difference and otherness it marks out between the Creator and all that is created: So the relation between this One and all that is created cannot be likened to a relation among created things, forcing us to search for a way of articulating its uniqueness, so leading us ineluctably to “negative theology”, of which there are several varieties26.

The trajectory along which Burrell moves his characterization of “the distinction” is one that marks out transcendence as a distinctively radical otherness that at once constitutes a singular relation and a singular difference between God and (all of) creation. His primary concern in marking out this trajectory is to provide a non-contrastive, non “zerosum” account of how divine freedom and human freedom stand toward one another. This account is one that he constructs (at least in part) as a response to “libertarian” accounts, both philosophical and theological, of human free will. These accounts, which place human freedom in a contrastive relation to divine agency, stand within the lineage of Scotist voluntarism that, in its affirmation of the univocity of being, entails denial of “the difference” that is affirmed in the grammar of “creation ex nihilo”. My proposal about the usefulness of his characterization of “the distinction” moves, however, along a different (though not unrelated) trajectory. My suggestion is that the radicalization of transcendence that Burrell marks out as indexed to creation ex nihilo offers a significant coordinate for repositioning discussions of grace to engage secularity’s “eclipse of grace”. It provides such a coordinate in that the radically singular otherness of divine transcendence marked out by “the distinction” provides a horizon that enables grace to be discerned in the very disruptive plurality and fragmentation inscribed in plurality and otherness that secularity has taken to be indicative of the eclipse of grace.

26. D.B. BURRELL, Creator-Creatures Relation: “The Distinction” vs “Onto-theology”, in Faith and Philosophy 25 (2008) 177-189, p. 182. He further notes in the same essay: “Alternatively, any philosophy of religion which intends to be operating in the Jewish, Christian, or Muslim traditions, all of which concur in presenting God as free creator of the universe, will betray the very tradition out of which it purports to be operating if it fails to find ways to articulate ‘the distinction’ of creator from creatures in a fashion which displays its uniqueness, and so the utterly gratuitous character of the act of creation; if it fails, in other words, to ask how conventional categories will have to be altered to meet the demands of the unique creator/creature relation” (ibid., p. 184).

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My specific suggestion here is to construe “the distinction” as licensing us to speak of Creation – i.e., to speak of the sustained and sustaining “enacting” in which God brings to be all that is not transcendent including the nihil “of/from” which it is drawn – as God’s enacting of otherness and of difference in their entirety and enacting it as good, “all the way down”. This point may be put in another way. “The difference” licenses us to say that plurality, otherness, and difference are embedded in the very grace and gracing that is constitutive of God’s activity of creating. Creation thus may be construed as the sustained and sustaining “enacting” in which God brings to be, in their entirety, otherness, and difference, all that is not transcendent. On this account, plurality and difference, far from witnessing to an eclipse or to an absence of grace, instead manifest, in their very being, as it is brought to be in otherness and as difference, the inexhaustible gratuity, the very “gracing”, constituted in and by God’s freely and abundantly given love. This thus indicates that otherness and difference are constitutive elements of creation “all the way down”: To be a creature consists in being gifted into otherness, an otherness that arises in all of creation as the radical dependence of gratuitously offered origination. III. A CONCLUSION AND A CHALLENGE Put in summary form, the “repositioning” of discussions of grace that I am proposing could, by framing them in terms of discourse and images that evoke difference and otherness, orient them conceptually (or in another idiom, “grammatically”) to what Burrell has termed “creation as original grace”. Such a repositioning would thus reference the presence and the working of “grace”, in the first instance, in and to “the difference” that is the very mark of the full gratuity of creation. This means that “grace” would function within the grammar of radical transcendence that inscribes divine gratuity into creation “all the way down” and for which creation ex nihilo provides the “unique philosophico-linguistic” expression. This would, in my judgement, better enable us to make a case for discerning the otherness, plurality, and difference that thoroughly pervades the created world – and indeed is that world – as primary indicators of grace: Referenced this way, “gracing” may be construed as God’s evoking to completion all the otherness and difference that is bestowed and that continues to be sustained “all the way down” in God’s ongoing activity of creating.

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The plurality, otherness, and difference that constitutes creation can thus be taken robustly to mark the abundant, unconstrained graciousness of God’s bestowing of being in all its finite otherness. In other words, to be a creature, to be brought into being in radical dependence, consists in being gifted into otherness and difference, into an otherness that arises as the radical dependence of origination gratuitously offered in the richness of difference that is creation ex nihilo. Such a repositioning of grace toward otherness and difference as its frame of reference would, I hope, enable efforts to start a productive conversation engaging secularity’s occlusion of grace from the very loci – otherness, plurality, and difference – in which its immanent frame of meaning has, for the most part, only been able to find markers of the absence of grace. A caveat, however, is needed here. Such conceptual and imaginative repositioning can only be an initial step – though a step of some importance – toward directly engaging the eclipse of grace; what it provides is only the most general horizon from which difference and otherness may be recognized as indicative of grace, of creation as itself constituting the horizon of abundant divine gratuity. It places difference and otherness within a horizon in which the presence and the working of grace in creation is never absent or lacking in virtue of God’s freely bringing it to be and faithfully sustaining it. Creation, in other words, stands within this horizon as persistently and pervasively “graced” such that it cannot be “ungraced”. Grace is encountered here in the abundant manner of God’s freely bringing creation to be and faithfully sustaining it in the abundant plurality of its otherness and of all the difference that encompasses. The “givenness” of creation as a whole and in all its particulars thus constitutes the horizon for a thoroughgoing persistence of grace throughout creation, as well as throughout all the plurality, otherness, and difference in creation27. Yet – and herein lies the challenge indicated in the heading of this section – even within this givenness, human recognition of the concrete presence and working of grace is not thereby also (fully) given. Being pervasively present and persistent does not thereby make the workings of grace unambiguously manifest as grace to human discernment. In fact, the very pervasiveness of its presence, its thorough interweaving into the fabric of creation, readily allows it to be overlooked. It stands so close to us that its obviousness is readily missed. It may very well be that part 27. Embedded in this claim about the “persistence of grace” are implications about how memory, history, and traditions may be appropriately construed as loci for the persistence of grace.

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of the very gratuity of God’s gracing is in the reticence in which it so often is encountered and by which it is enacted. It is of the very character of “gracing” to draw attention away from itself, lest it be taken, not as invitation to be drawn in freedom into God’s inexhaustible abundance but as a transactional exchange with a calculating deity we have made in our own (mercantile) image or as a self-affirming sign that we have been restored to favor in the eyes of a petulant divinity mirroring our own self-enclosure. This challenge might be most pointedly posed by looking back at the concern that provoked the efforts of this essay to re-orient intramural Christian discussions of grace, i.e., the need to engage “the eclipse of grace” that marks the cultures of secularity in a more direct fashion than has generally been possible by framing grace in terms of the issues of justification sola gratia that preoccupied the Reformation and, ironically, played a role in the emergence of a modernity and secularity bereft of grace. The challenge might be framed this way. Repositioning discussions of grace to attend to the horizon of “original grace” provided by the abundant plurality of the otherness of creation could be a step toward enabling recognition of grace in a secularity in which it stands eclipsed. It could do so inasmuch as it provides a horizon for acknowledging the abundant gratuity of plurality, otherness, and difference of and in the world, an acknowledgement that is particularly well attuned to the dynamics of human aesthetic experience and creative expression. It is by no means accidental that some of the most potent “cross-pressures” that Taylor identifies that have been at work within the immanent frame of secularity have arisen from loci of artistic creation in poetry, fiction, art, and music28. These forms of human activity, in their attention to what is sensed as an unavoidable dimension of “depth” to the human condition, gesture in multifarious way toward the unasked-for abundance that eventuates from the dynamic of creation ex nihilo. At the same time, the very circumstances of secularity, such as the various potent forms of naturalistic reductionism, frequently sideline human experiences that evoke a recognition of “depth” (aesthetic or otherwise) as a reliable path to truth. Despite the “cross pressures” and “dilemmas”29 that such experiences provoke, much of secularity remains prone to argue that these are hardly adequate to dispel another – and arguably the far more 28. See Sources of the Self (n. 12), Chapters 23 and 24, “Visions of the Post-Romantic Age”, and “Epiphanies of Modernism”, 419-493; Secular Age (n. 1), Chapter 20, “Conversions”, 728-772. 29. Secular Age (n. 1), Chapter 16, “Cross Pressures”; Chapter 17, “Dilemmas 1”; Chapter 18, “Dilemmas 2”.

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potent – form in which the eclipse of grace has beset secularity. This is the eclipse constituted by shadows and the darkness of the stubbornly pervasive persistence of evil and its consequences as it continues to be so often wrought upon the world by human action, neglect, and sheer inattention. Engaging this dimension of the eclipse of grace would, most likely, require us to double back to the point of irony with which this essay started: the Reformation controversies over justification by grace and the imprint with which those controversies marked the shape of modernity and secularity. It is at least arguable that central to the origin of the controversies was Luther’s own wrestling with what I have just described as the “shadows and the darkness of the stubbornly pervasive persistence of evil and its consequences”. I take these to be the circumstances that Luther forcefully and pointedly articulated in terms of the human incapacity to extricate ourselves from the grasp of the selfincurred evil that Christian theology names “sin” and for which he saw sola gratia as the only recourse. In keeping with what I have proposed as a re-orientation of discussions of grace to horizons of discourse and imagination referenced to “otherness”, it thus may be useful to see the next and urgently needed step in such re-orientation to be the challenge of engaging from this horizon of otherness those questions of evil and sin that bear upon what I will call (provocatively) secularity’s “moral eclipse” of grace30. Marquette University Department of Theology Marquette Hall 335 1217 W. Wisconsin Avenue Milwaukee, WI 53233 USA [email protected]

Philip J. ROSSI, SJ

30. I am grateful to Patrick Burns, SJ, for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay.

BETWEEN MYSTERY AND DOCTRINE THE EUCHARIST IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

I. EXPERIENCING A MYSTERY

IN THE

MEDIEVAL CHURCH

In Lent, 1273, Thomas Aquinas gave a series of sermons, “Collationes”, on the Apostles’ Creed in the parish church of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples1. In the thirteenth sermon, on what medieval tradition had numbered the ninth and tenth articles of faith, “sanctorum communionem, remissionem peccatorem”, Thomas took up the sacraments: …Therefore the good of Christ is communicated to all Christians, as the wisdom of the head is communicated to all the members. This communion comes about through the sacraments of the church, in which the strength of the passion of Christ for conferring grace and for forgiving sins operates2.

Thomas then treated each of the sacraments, which he numbered seven, in sequence: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders, and matrimony. On the Eucharist, third in the sequence, Thomas had this to say: In bodily life, after human beings are born and gain their powers, food is required so that it might conserve and sustain them. So it goes in the spiritual life; after the strengthening [of confirmation] spiritual food, which is the body of Christ, is required: John: “unless you shall have eaten the flesh” and so forth. Thus it is, following the order of the church, once a year each and every Christian ought to receive the body of Christ. Nonetheless, 1. N. AYO, Introduction, in The Sermon-Conferences of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Apostles’ Creed, trans. and ed. N. AYO, Eugene, OR, Wipf & Stock, 1988, 1-2. Ayo also provides the textual tradition: “Thomas preached in the Neapolitan vernacular dialect that was his mother tongue. His sermon-conferences were recorded by Reginald of Piperno, his long-time secretary and companion, who presumably translated them into Latin, very likely after the death of Thomas”, ibid., p. 2. Scholars are not agreed, if Thomas preached the Ten Commandments in the same year in Naples, or, as Ayo suggests, previously in Rome, but they are agreed that he preached the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ave Maria, a total of twenty-eight sermons, during Lent in 1273, AYO, Introduction, p. 2. 2. “Bonum ergo Christi communicatur omnibus christianis, sicut uirtus capitis communicatur omnibus membris; et hec communio fit per sacramenta Ecclesie, in quibus operatur uirtus passionis Christi ad conferendum gratiam et ad remissionem peccatorum”, The Sermon-Conferences of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Apostles’ Creed (n. 1), pp. 134135.

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Figure 1: Rogier van der Weyden, “Altar of the Seven Sacraments” (before 1450). Oil on wood, 200 cm × 223 cm. Antwerpen, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten. Photo: Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY. it should be received conscientiously and worthily, because “whoever eats and drinks unworthily” that is to say, with a conscience of mortal sin which has not been confessed, or from which there is no intention to abstain, “eats and drinks judgment upon himself”3. 3. This is, with the exception of “abstain”, Ayo’s translation, but I have removed Ayo’s clarifications in the text, that Aquinas’s silences are more evident. Ayo’s full translation is: “In bodily life, after human beings are born and gain their powers, food is required so that it might conserve and sustain them. So it goes in the spiritual life; after the strengthening [of confirmation] spiritual food, which is the body of Christ, is required: ‘[Jesus said to them: “Amen, amen I say to you:] unless you shall have eaten the flesh [of the Son of man, and drunk his blood, you will not have life in you”]’ and so forth (John [6:54]). Thus it is, following the [liturgical] order of the church, once a year each and every Christian ought to receive the body of Christ. Nonetheless, it should be received conscientiously and worthily, because ‘whoever eats and drinks unworthily’ [1 Cor. 11:29], that is to say, with a conscience of mortal sin which has not been confessed, or from which there is no intention to refrain, ‘eats and drinks judgment upon himself [not discerning the body of the Lord]’ [1 Cor. 11:29]”; “Tertium est eucharistia. Sicut enim in uita corporali, postquam homo natus est et uires sumpsit, necessarius est cibus ut conseruetur et sustentetur; ita in uita spirituali, post robur necessarius est cibus

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In what one modern translator called his “catechetical sermons”4, Thomas was concerned to teach only two things on the Eucharist: first, regular, annual communion; second, the penitential approach to communion, or how one, according to Thomas, received the sacrament “worthily”. In those same sermons, Thomas preached that each sacrament changes the person receiving: baptism cleanses, confirmation strengthens, penance heals, the Eucharist nourishes5. Some, the sacraments of baptism and ordination, changed a person once for all time, some, the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist, again and again – but each sacrament changed the person receiving it. Following Augustine, the medieval Church held that sacraments work, not solely through words, but through matter and through the human body. As Thomas preached, sacraments work through the body to affect the soul: Christians were “cleansed” with water, “anointed” with oil, “fed” with the host. Christians received the sacraments on their skin, with their hands, through their eyes, in their mouths, through their ears6. In each, Thomas preached, “operate[d] the merits of the passion of Christ, which in turn operates for the conferring of grace unto the remission of sins”7. Thomas preached the Collationes within the same space as the Mass was, regularly – on given days, Sundays and feast days, and at given times – celebrated8. The text which served as the subject of his sermons, the Apostles’ Creed, was sung in the Mass, immediately before what Joseph Jungmann called “The Sacrifice”, that part of the Mass which was reserved for full members of the Church, in which the sacrament of the Eucharist was offered9. Before the disruptions of the sixteenth century, the great majority of European Christians received the Eucharist in the very same space in spiritualis qui est corpus Christi. Io. ‘Nisi manducaueritis carnem’ etc. Et inde est quod, secundum ordinem Ecclesie, semel in anno quilibet christianus debet recipere corpus Christi; munde tamen et digne, quia ‘Qui manducat et bibit indigne’, scilicet cum conscientia peccati mortalis de quo non est confessus, uel non proponit abstinere, ‘iudicium sibi manducat et bibit’”, The Sermon-Conferences of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Apostles’ Creed (n. 1), pp. 136-137. 4. The Catechetical Instructions of Saint Thomas Aquinas, trans. J.B. COLLINS, Baltimore, MD, The Catholic Primer, 1939. See also A. LÄPPLE, Kleine Geschichte der Katechese, München, Beck 1981, pp. 81-82. 5. The Sermon-Conferences of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Apostles’ Creed (n. 1), pp. 134-137. 6. As Aquinas suggests, “reception” was by no means simple. 7. The Catechetical Instructions of Saint Thomas Aquinas (n. 4), p. 46. 8. AYO, Introduction (n. 1), pp. 1-2. 9. J. JUNGMANN, The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development (Missarum Sollemnia), 2 vols., trans. F.A. BRUNNER, Allen, TX, Christian Classics, 1986 (1951), here vol. 2.

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which they had been baptized, where they had brought their children to be baptized, where they confessed and received absolution, where they attended daily or weekly Mass, Masses for the dead, perhaps Masses for their own family. That place was not simply familiar. It was a place of sounds, scents, and visions that, analogously to the sacraments, were meant to work through the senses10. It was a sensorium for prayer, the Mass, and the sacraments. As the sensorium grew in complexity, richness, and density, medieval commentators took it up in their explications of the Mass, weaving multiple connections – of allegory, figuration, mimesis, representation, signification – between the Mass and its made environment. In the thirteenth century, William Durand compiled many of those explications into the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, which remained well into the sixteenth century enormously popular, printed widely, in Venice, Lyon, Augsburg, Antwerp11. The Rationale offers us multiple ways of thinking about the walls of the church, the altar, the images on the walls and on the altar, vestments, the movements in the Mass, bells, incense. The second chapter, for example, offers ways of reading the altar that parallel the senses of Scripture12 – historical, allegorical, tropological, and anagogical – that Durand had set forth in the Prologue: It should be known, as it is written, that first Noah, then Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob built altars; these are understood to be nothing more than stones that were piled up, upon which they slaughtered the sacrifices and burnt them by placing fire on them. … And note that in Scripture we read that there are multiple types of altars, namely, a higher and lower, or interior and exterior, whose parts each have a twofold sense. The higher altar is the Triune God13, And the higher altar is the Church triumphant14, The lower altar is the Church militant15, The low altar is also the table of the Temple16; and in III Kings, chapter 7, 10. On the senses in the liturgy, see most recently, É. PALAZZO, L’invention chrétienne des cinq sens dans la liturgie et l’art au Moyen Âge, Paris, Cerf, 2014. 11. T.M. THIBODEAU, Introduction, in The Rationale divinorum officiorum of William Durand of Mende, trans. T.M. THIBODEAU, New York, Columbia University Press, 2007, pp. xviii-xxii; J.F. WHITE, Durandus and the Interpretation of Christian Worship, in G.H. SHRIVER (ed.), Contemporary Reflections on the Medieval Christian Tradition, Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 1974, 41-52, pp. 47-51. 12. “It must be noted that in Holy Scripture there is a historical, allegorical, tropological, and anagogical sense”, Prologue, The Rationale divinorum officiorum of William Durand of Mende (n. 11), p. 3. 13. “about which it is written: You shall not ascend my altar by steps [Ex 20:26]”. 14. “about which is said: Then you shall place your bull on the altar [Ps 50:21]”. 15. “about which is said: If you make an altar of stone for me, you shall not build it from cut stones [Ex 20:25]”. 16. “about which it is said: Decree a day of solemnity, [processing] with thick boughs to the horns of the altar [Ps 117:27]”.

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it says that Solomon made a golden altar [cf. I Chr. 7:48]. The interior altar is a pure heart … The interior altar is also our faith in the Incarnation17, The exterior altar is the altar of the cross; this is the altar of the holocaust on which the evening sacrifice was burnt, for which reason it says in the Canon of the Mass: “We pray that your angel may take this sacrifice to your altar in heaven”, etc. The exterior altar is also the ecclesiastical sacraments… Moreover the altar is the mortification of the body or of the heart in which our carnal distractions are overcome by the fervor of the Holy Spirit. Second, the altar signifies the spiritual Church, and the four corners of the altar signify the four regions of the world through which the Church has spread. Third, it signifies Christ, without whom no acceptable offering can be made to the Father, and so the Church is accustomed to offer prayers to the Father, through Christ. Fourth, it signifies the Body of the Lord … Fifth, it signifies the table on which Christ ate and drank with His disciples18.

Multiple readings coexist in Durand’s presentation; no one meaning excludes another, no way of meaning excludes other ways; quite the contrary, all operate simultaneously. The altar is not only the bearer of these meanings; it is one materialization of scriptural narrative and at the very same moment, a prompt for christological significance. As Durand knew, every church, even the smallest parish church, had its own altar19. For Durand, every altar carried these multiple senses, this complex of meanings. Even if all Christians did not share Durand’s complex understanding of the altar, they knew it was the site to which their church had been consecrated, the site of its preeminent purpose. And they may well have shared, at a minimum, his sense that the altar was no mere object, but something physical which connected that space to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, as well as to the Passion. Between the thirteenth century and the sixteenth, churches came to hold more and more images of proliferating forms: crucifixes, murals, sculpture, panel paintings, and altarpieces. Increasingly, retables or altarpieces were commissioned for altars, which, in turn were proliferating in this same period20. While that proliferation came under sustained and vehement criticism in the sixteenth century – in terms that abide to this

17. “concerning which it is decreed in Exodus: An altar of earth you shall make for me [Ex 20:24]”. 18. The Rationale divinorum officiorum of William Durand of Mende (n. 11), pp. 26-27. 19. See J. BRAUN, Der christliche Altar, München, Alte Meister Guenther Koch & Co., 1924, 2 vols. 20. On the interplay of altar, sacrament, and altarpiece, see H. SCHLIE, Bilder des Corpus Christi: Sakramentaler Realismus von Jan van Eyck bis Hieronymous Bosch, Berlin, Gebr. Mann, 1999. On the increase in numbers of altars, see, for example, JUNGMANN, The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development (n. 9), vol. 1, pp. 129-131.

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day – Durand offers us another way of conceptualizing it, as itself materializations of protean thinking on the Incarnation. Each medieval Eucharist, following this line of thought, was celebrated within its own distinctive visual environment, each one unique, each one complex, each one encompassing multiple meditations on Christ, the Incarnation, the Passion, the Crucifixion21. Let me offer an example of just one interplay of Eucharist and image. Rogier van der Weyden’s Altarpiece of the Seven Sacraments (Figure 1) now rests in a museum, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. Both displacement and museum are themselves evidence of the shift this paper is sketching22. Its form, a retable, and its content argue for its original placement on an altar, in the sightline behind the celebrant at the Mass and thus in the visual field of the Mass. It is an artifact of one particular sensorium; scholars are not even certain, which one – yet another marker of the depth of the rupture at the center of this paper. Van der Weyden’s Altarpiece of the Seven Sacraments has been the subject of especially rich interpretations23. It depicts each of the seven sacraments. It also, quite possibly because of its patron, Jean Chevrot, who became the Bishop of Tournai24, renders each priest and the bishop in brilliant white, visualizing the centrality of sacerdotal power to the sacraments. As in Thomas’s preaching, the sacraments are linked, spatially

21. E. FOLEY makes this argument in A Tale of Two Sanctuaries: Late Medieval Eucharist and the Analogous, in I.C. LEVY – G. MACY – K. VAN AUSDALL (eds.), A Companion to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages, Leiden, Brill, 2012, 327-363. For a brief overview of the relationship between theology and art, see J.F. HAMBURGER, The Place of Theology in Medieval Art History: Problems, Positions, Possibilities, in ID. – A.-M. BOUCHE (eds.), The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2006, 11-31. 22. While I agree with J. KOERNER that the placement of images in museums is one measure of the radical reconceptualization of what images are and what they do (The Reformation of the Image, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago, 2004), I have argued that the reasons reside in changing understandings of the Incarnation in Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel, New York – Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995. 23. E. PANOFSKY, Two Roger Problems: The Donor of the Hague Lamentation and the Date of the Altarpiece of the Seven Sacraments, in Art Bulletin 33 (1951) 33-40; B.G. LANE, The Altar and the Altarpiece: Sacramental Themes in Early Netherlandish Painting, New York, Harper & Row, 1984; A. ACRES, Rogier van der Weyden’s Painted Texts, in Artibus et Historiae 21/41 (2000) 75-109; B. ROTHSTEIN, Moveable Feasts of Reason: Description, Intelligence, and the Excitation of Sight, in C. GÖTTLER (ed.), Spirits Unseen: The Representation of Subtle Bodies in Early Modern European Culture, Leiden, Brill, 2008, 47-70; L.F. JACOBS, Opening Doors: The Early Netherlandish Triptych Reinterpreted, University Park, PA, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012, ch. 3. 24. M. FRIEDLÄNDER, Van Eyck to Bruegel, 2 vols., London, Phaidon, 1969, vol. 1, p. 23.

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within the church represented across all three panels and visually by the vestments of the priests and the presence of a scroll above each. In placing them all in the same space Van der Weyden visualized that as many as six of those sacraments, baptism, confirmation, penance, orders, marriage, and the Eucharist might be celebrated in the same space25. Arranged in a semi-circle, the sacraments also mark the stages of a human life – birth, adulthood, marriage or orders, and death. The image does what words, which of necessity are always sequential, linear, could not: the differing kinds of time, sacramental as well as human, within a single space. The Crucifixion in the central panel at once dominates the whole and exists within it, resting on the floor of the church, inside the frame of the retable. The image recalls for us the presence of crucifixes in the space of the Mass, in some particular churches, perhaps small, hanging on walls, in some, such as the church of Sankt Lorenz in Nuremberg, life-sized, placed above the altar in the apse, some, as in many English churches, placed on the rood screen. Although there would be no formally decreed doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass before the Council of Trent26, churches across Europe contained images, two- and three-dimensional, small and life-sized, of the Crucifixion. In the sightline of the Crucifixion that Van der Weyden constructs with the columns of the nave on the right-hand side is the elevated host27. Like the priests’ albs and the women’s wimples, it is brilliant white. In this image, the chalice is not visible on the altar, but a figure, probably the apostle John, on the column to the priest’s right holds and blesses a chalice, apostle figuring a movement of the sacrament. Blood flows from the wounds of crucified Christ’s hands along his arms and from his feet down the cross. The elements of the Eucharist, the host so visible here, and the wine, through touch and their visibility linked the Mass to the visible world, which Van der Weyden has rendered with his characteristically intense 25. As the presence of the bed on the right manifests, last rites were normally administered in the home. 26. B.J. KIDD, The Later Medieval Doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, London, SPCK, 1958; R.J. DALY, The Council of Trent, in L.P. WANDEL (ed.), A Companion to the Eucharist in the Reformation, Leiden, Brill, 2014, 159-182. 27. On the elevation of the Host, see É. DUMOUTET, Le désir de voir l’hostie et les origines de la dévotion au Saint-Sacrement, Paris, Beauchesne,1926; P. BROWE, Die Elevation in der Messe, in Die Eucharistie im Mittelalter: Liturgiehistorische Forschungen in kulturwissenschaftlicher Absicht, Münster, Lit, 2003, 475-508; V.L. KENNEDY, The Moment of Consecration and the Elevation of the Host, in Mediaeval Studies 6 (1944) 121-150.

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colors – a world of express visual beauty and complexity. As the image renders within the borders of its frame, the Mass encompassed the celebrant, his assistants, congregants, all of whom were differently implicated in the words of the canon, “hoc est enim corpus meum”28. The words simultaneously, as the Van der Weyden visualizes, referred to multiple bodies, all present, albeit in different ways in the moment of consecration. I do not wish to argue that every viewer, or even any one viewer, brought the same visual acuity to images that modern art historians do – we know so little what contemporaries did or did not see29 – but the Altarpiece is one of thousands upon thousands of missing pieces in our consideration of the late medieval Eucharist. The visible world was not, as that placement in a museum materializes, severed, but itself implicated in the Incarnation, as the altarpiece images. Seeing the Host also located the Host in the visible world, again captured within the frame of the image, in ways scholars are still discussing, at once intensifying and complicating vision30. Processions at Corpus Christi carried Hosts in their monstrances outside the walls of churches into towns, the surrounding urban landscape, weaving that landscape into that which made the Host so very significant31. Analogously, receiving the Host in one’s mouth linked the world of touch to the mystery of the Incarnation. 28. Cf. H. DE LUBAC, Corpus mysticum: L’eucharistie et l’Église au Moyen âge: Étude historique, Paris, Aubier, 1949. 29. For a particularly rich exploration of the question of what individual viewers might have brought to any one image, see B. ROTHSTEIN, Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005. Based on surviving English rood screens, some scholars have argued that the laity had limited sight of the Mass. Surviving Spanish rejeria offer evidence that the English form was by no means universal, A. BYNE – M. STAPLEY, Rejeria of the Spanish Renaissance, New York, Hispanic Society of America, 1914. As Byne and Stapley show, any sort of architectural separation was also not universal, but to be found in specific chapels and in cathedrals, that is, neither village churches nor all parish churches had some kind of separation between the laity and the altar. For a brilliant reading of the complex visual and liturgical work of choir screens, see J.E. JUNG, The Gothic Screen: Space, Sculpture, and Community in the Cathedrals of France and Germany, ca. 1200-1400, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012. 30. On the complexity of that interplay, see especially R. FALKENBURG, Hieronymous Bosch’s Mass of St. Gregory and ‘Sacramental Vision’, in A. GORMANS – T. LENTES (eds.), Das Bild der Erscheinung: Die Gregorsmesse im Mittelalter, Berlin, Reimer, 2007, 178-206; ROTHSTEIN, Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting (n. 29). See also, C.W. BYNUM, Seeing and Seeing Beyond: The Mass of St. Gregory in the Fifteenth Century, in The Mind’s Eye (n. 21), 208-240; A. KUMLER, The Multiplication of the Species: Eucharistic Morphology in the Middle Ages, in RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 59/60 (2011) 179-191. 31. C. ZIKA, Hosts, Processions and Pilgrimages: Controlling the Sacred in FifteenthCentury Germany, in Past and Present 118 (1988) 25-64; M. RUBIN, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

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In 1500, the Eucharist encompassed words, movements, color, many different sorts of sound – human voices speaking and chanting, bells, perhaps an organ – gestures, textures, taste, and scent. As the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum explained, those gestures, sounds, movements, colors all brought to the Eucharist allegory, figuration, connotation, mimesis, as well as representation – a multitude of connections among mind, matter, and God32. The Eucharist was not understood as a discrete event in the medieval Church, restricted to Sundays or, as it would be in Reformed communities, to four times a year33. It was that for which each church had originally been consecrated – the purpose for the space. It was, as the Van der Weyden visualizes, the point of reference for so much of late medieval Christian material culture, both inside and outside the walls of churches, as the open door signals. The altar was the locus for a mystery that was bounded neither spatially nor temporally. Equally important, that mystery had been neither defined nor circumscribed in theological debates. There was, in 1500, no formal decree on the sacrifice of the Mass; that would first occur at the Council of Trent. There was, in 1500, no more formal statement of a doctrine of the real presence than had been made at the Fourth Lateran Council, which I quote here in its fullness34: There is indeed one universal church of the faithful, outside of which nobody at all is saved, in which Jesus Christ is both priest and sacrifice. His body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine, the bread and wine have been changed in substance, by God’s power, into his body and blood, so that in order to achieve this mystery of unity we receive from God what he received from us35.

32. Prologue, The Rationale divinorum officiorum of William Durand of Mende (n. 11). 33. “By the eleventh century daily celebration of the Mass was the norm … By that time Mass was celebrated individually by every priest:.. There was therefore at least one daily sung Mass in large churches, and more often two or even three”, J. HARPER, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy from the Tenth to the Eighteenth Century, Oxford, Clarendon, 1991, p. 45. 34. E.J. KILMARTIN, The Eucharist in the West: History and Theology, ed. R.J. DALY, Collegeville, MN, Pueblo, 1998; LEVY – MACY – VAN AUSDALL (eds.), A Companion to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages (n. 21). Kilmartin and all the articles on theology in A Companion stress the richness of medieval discussion of real presence as well as sacrifice, the nuanced terms of those discussions, and the sheer diversity of positions prior to the sixteenth century. 35. “Una vero est fidelium universalis ecclesia, extra quam nullus omnino salvatur, in qua idem ipse sacerdos et sacrificium Iesus Christus, cuius corpus et sanguis in sacramento altaris sub speciebus panis et vini veraciter continentur, transsubstantiatis pane in corpus et vino in sanguinem potestate divina, ut ad perficiendum mysterium unitatis accipiamus ipsi de suo, quod accepit ipse de nostro”, N.P. TANNER (ed.), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols., London, Sheed & Ward, 1990, vol. 1, p. 230.

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There was no single Missal let alone the requirement that all priests follow a single text. All this would occur in the wake of Evangelical36 challenges to the ways the Eucharist had been practiced, visualized, and written about in western Europe since the days of the apostles. II. FROM MYSTERY

TO

NARRATIVE

In 1520, Luther published a series of pamphlets criticizing what we have all come to call “the Mass”, as though it were a single thing37. The most famous of those, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, laid out three “captivities”: first, “the substance or completeness”, communion in one kind38; second, transubstantiation39; and third, “by far the most wicked of all … that the Mass is a good work and a sacrifice”40. The critiques of the Babylonian Captivity and sixteenth-century responses to them have shaped scholarship on Luther’s eucharistic theology ever since41. And yet, only the second “captivity”, transubstantiation, had 36. “Protestant”, the term used in much modern scholarship, retains its political origins – those who signed a formal protest – and there have been “Reformers” throughout the history of Christianity. “Evangelicals” was the term sixteenth-century Christians most often used to refer to themselves and points toward their sense, by no means universally shared, that their understanding of Christianity was both apostolic and scriptural. 37. On Luther and the medieval Mass, see H.B. MEYER, Luther und die Messe: Eine liturgiewissenschaftliche Untersuchung über das Verhältnis Luthers zum Meßwesen des späten Mittelalters, Paderborn, Bonifacius-Druckerei, 1965; R. MESSNER, Die Meßreform Martin Luthers und die Eucharistie der Alten Kirche (Innsbrucker Theologische Studien, 25), Innsbruck – Wien, Tyrolia, 1989; L.P. WANDEL, The Eucharist in the Reformation: Incarnation and Liturgy, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2006, Ch. 3; V. LEPPIN, Martin Luther, in WANDEL (ed.), A Companion to the Eucharist in the Reformation (n. 26), 39-56. 38. M. LUTHER, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church 1520, ed. E.H. HERMANN, in P.W. ROBINSON (gen. ed.), The Annotated Luther Study Edition, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 2016, p. 29. “Prima ergo captivitatis huius sacramenti est quo ad eius substantiam seu integritatem, quam nobis abstulit Romana tyrannis”, WA 6, p. 507, 6-9. 39. Ibid., p. 33. “Absurda est ergo et nova verborum impositio, panem pro specie vel accidentibus panis, vinum pro specie vel accentibus vini accipi”, WA 6, p. 509, 22-23. 40. Ibid., p. 38. “Tertia captivitas eiusdem sacramenti Est longe impiissimus ille abusus, quo factum est, ut fere nihil sit hodie in Ecclesia receptius ac magis persuasum, quam Missam esse opus bonum et sacrificium”, WA 6, p. 512, 7-9. On Luther and the sacrifice of the Mass, see C.F. WISLÖFF, Abendmahl und Messe: Die Kritik Luthers am Meßopfer, Berlin, Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1969; R.C. CROKEN, Luther’s First Front: The Eucharist as Sacrifice, Ottowa, University of Ottowa Press, 1990. 41. See, for example, J. ECK, De sacrificio missae libri tres (1526), ed. E. ISERLOH – V. PFNÜR – P. FABISCH, Münster, Aschendorff, 1982. In Session 22, 17 September 1562, the Council of Trent set forth “Doctrina et canones de sanctissimo missae sacrificio”, TANNER (ed.), Decrees (n. 35), vol. 1, pp. 732-741. See also DALY, The Council of Trent (n. 26), pp. 159-182.

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been formally decreed, and only in 1215, at the Fourth Lateran Council, in the few words we have already seen42. Luther effected one fundamental shift in thinking about the Mass in the very way he formulated his criticisms of it. There had not been one formal, exhaustive statement, on either the nature of Christ’s presence in the elements – Communion in one kind or transubstantiation – or the nature of the sacrifice in the Mass43. Quite the contrary, the mystery of Incarnation was protean in late medieval Christianity. In his early pamphlets, Luther did not simply criticize what we have come to call the medieval Mass; he accorded to Rome a uniformity of doctrine and practice that did not exist44. Those criticisms were rooted in Luther’s reconceptualization of the Mass, lines of which he set forth more fully in another 1520 pamphlet, the Sermon on the New Testament, that is the Holy Mass. There, Luther set forth his sense of the Mass as a particular kind of verbal event: 3. Christ, in order to prepare for himself an acceptable and beloved people, which should be bound together in unity through love, abolished the whole law of Moses. And that he might not give further occasion for divisions and sects, he appointed in return but one law or order for his entire people, and that was the holy mass. … Henceforth, therefore, there is to be no other external order for the service of God except the mass. And where the mass is used, there is true worship; even though there be no other form, with singing, organ playing, bell ringing, vestments, ornaments, and gestures. For everything of this sort is an addition invented by men. When Christ himself first instituted this sacrament and held the first mass, there was no tonsure, no chasuble, no singing, no pageantry, but only thanksgiving to God and the use of the sacrament45. 42. “Una vero est fidelium universalis ecclesia, extra quam nullus omnino salvatur, in qua idem ipse sacerdos et sacrificium Iesus Christus, cuius corpus et sanguis in sacramento altaris sub speciebus panis et vini veraciter continentur, transsubstantiatis pane in corpus et vino in sanguininem potestate divina, ut ad perficiendum mysterium unitatis accipiamus ipsi de suo, quod accepit ipse de nostro”, TANNER (ed.), Decrees (n. 35), vol. 1, p. 230. 43. See, for example, H.A. OBERMAN – W.J. COURTENAY (eds.), Gabrielis Biel Canonis misse expositio, 5 vols., Wiesbaden, F. Steiner, 1963-76. 44. On the richness and diversity of medieval thinking on the Eucharist, see foremost KIDD, The Later Medieval Doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice (n. 26); KILMARTIN, The Eucharist in the West (n. 34); and A Companion to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages (n. 21). 45. M. LUTHER, A Treatise on the New Testament, That Is the Holy Mass, 1520, trans. J.J. SCHINDEL, rev. E.T. BACHMANN, LW 35, pp. 80-81; “Czum dritten. Auff das nu Christus yhm bereyttet eyn angenhem liebes volck, das eintrechtiglich yn ein ander gepunden were durch die liebe, hat er auff gehaben das gantz gesetz Mosi, und das er nit ursache den secten und zurteylungen hynfuerter gebe, hatt er widderumb nit mehr den eyne weyß odder gesetz eyngesetzt seynem gantzen volck, das ist die heylige Meß (Dan wie wol die tauff auch ein eußerliche weyße ist, ßo geschicht sie doch nur ein mall, und ist nit ein uebung des gantzen lebens, wie die meß), das nu hinfuertter keyn ander eußerliche weyß

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Luther’s reading of the Gospel narrative, “one law or order for his entire people”, breaks in so many ways with medieval thinking and practice46. For Luther, “the Mass” was and is one – the word refers not to an aggregate of prayers, lessons, chants performed variously but to a single unitary event. As Luther would write, again and again, there is one Mass, neither Masses for the dead nor Masses for saints nor Masses for the Virgin nor Masses divided between daily and high feast. There is no other order for the service of God than that which is set forth in the text of Scripture. In that sense of the singularity of the Mass, Luther severed the Mass from the Divine Office; the act of collective worship from Masses for the dead, the Virgin, a local saint, and with it, worship among the living from the dead, the holy, and Mary. The Mass had taken place in cloisters such as that of the Augustinian Hermits in Erfurt, where the Divine Office marked the hours of the monastic life; in cathedrals where choirs chanted parts of it, even as they, too, observed the Divine Office; in parish churches dedicated to a local saint and patronized by local lords who, in turn, were remembered in the cadences of the liturgy. It had been situated in places, sites, of multiple forms of worship, and enacted by persons who participated in it and in those other forms of worship – in place and in person the Mass had not been a thing apart. Second, and equally transformative, for Luther, the Mass is law, “Gesetz” – verbal and a statement. Something written, recorded. Even as Luther preserved the medieval word, Mass, to name what the faithful were to do, he severed at its very roots an understanding of the Mass as something which grows organically, to invoke Jungmann, among the people47; something done as much as spoken; something arising from a complex moment of movement, spoken words, matter – bread and wine – and place. He severed an ancient understanding of the Mass as itself not only sensible through five senses, but equally rooted in the idea, as

solt sein, gott zu dienen, den die meß, und wo die geuebt wirt, da ist der recht gottes dienst, ob schon kein andere weyß mit singen orgellen, klingen, kleyden, tzierden, geperden da ist, den alliß, was des ist, ist ein zusatz von menschen erdacht. Dan do Christus selbst und am ersten diß sacrament insetzt unnd die ersten meß hielt und uebet, da war keyn platten, kein casell, keyn prangen, ßondern allein dancksagung gottis und des sacraments brauch”, WA 6, p. 354, 18-31. 46. “hatt er widderumb nit mehr den eyne weyß odder gesetz eyngesetzt seynem gantzen volck / das ist die heylige Meß”, Martin Luther, Eyn Sermon von dem // newen Testament. das // ist von der heyligē // Messe Doct. // Mar. L. // Aug. // Wittenbergk. 1520, Aiiv. 47. JUNGMANN, The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development (n. 9); A. ANGENENDT, Liturgik und Historik: Gab es eine organische Liturgie-Entwicklung?, Freiburg i.Br., Herder, 2001.

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Eric Palazzo has recently shown, that the senses had been theologically implicated in the Incarnation48. That choice of word, “Gesetz”, also points toward Luther’s particular understanding of the relationship of the text of Scripture to living congregations. Luther did not view the Gospel narrative as a script for a performance, to be reenacted, as, say, some Anabaptists sought to do49. Law, it was to govern the human practice of worship, not serve as a prompt for human action. That one Mass, for Luther, was not only set forth in, but fully contained within Scripture. All else was “an addition invented by men”. Luther even separated Christ’s movements at the Last Supper from the words: 5. If we desire to observe mass properly and to understand it, then we must surrender everything that the eyes behold and that the senses suggest – be it vestments, bells, songs, ornaments, prayers, processions, elevations, prostrations, or whatever happens in the mass – until we first grasp and thoroughly ponder the words of Christ, by which he performed and instituted the mass and commanded us to perform it. For therein lies the whole mass, its nature, work, profit and benefit. Without the words nothing is derived from the mass. Now the words are these: Take and eat, this is my body, which is given for you. Take and drink all of it, all of you, this is the cup of the new and eternal testament in my blood, which is poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. These words every Christian must have before him in the mass50.

For Luther, “the whole mass, its nature, work, profit and benefit” lay in words and words alone. He did not eliminate the matter of the Mass, the bread and the wine, but the bread and the wine acquired their meaning solely through the words of institution. They did not create meaning or materialize it; they received it, externally, from Scripture. As he would 48. PALAZZO, L’invention chrétienne des cinq sens dans la liturgie et l’art au Moyen Âge (n. 10). 49. M.Z. HANSON, Anabaptist Liturgical Practices, in WANDEL (ed.), A Companion to the Eucharist in the Reformation (n. 26), 251-272. 50. LUTHER, A Treatise on the New Testament, That Is the Holy Mass, 1520 (n. 45), p. 82; “Czum funfften. Woellen wir recht meß halten und vorstahn, ßo mussen wir alles faren lassen, was die augen und alle synn in dißem handel mugen zeygen und antragen, es sey kleyd, klang, gesang, tzierd, gepett, tragen, heben, legen, odder was da geschehen mag yn der meß, biß das wir zuvor die wort Christi fassen und wol bedencken, damit er die meß volnbracht und eyngesetzt und uns zuvolbringen bevolhen hatt, dan darynnen ligt die meß gantz mit all yhrem weßen, werck, nutz und frucht, on wilche nichts von der meß empfangen wirt. Das sein aber die wort: Nemet hyn und esset, das ist mein leychnam, der fur euch geben wirt. Nemet hyn und trinckt darauß allesampt, das ist der kilch des newen und ewigen Testaments yn meynem bluet, das fur euch und fur viele vorgossen wirt zuvorgebung der sund”, WA 6, p. 355, 21-32.

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ultimately write in The German Catechism, a Christian must know the words before receiving the sacrament – in order to know what the bread and the wine are51. All else – “images, bells, eucharistic vestments, church ornaments, altar lights” – was “an addition invented by men”, or as Luther would call them in the Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper in 1528, “things indifferent”52. None of the objects, fabrics, textures, images, colors, sounds or scents – none of the complex sensorium of the medieval Mass – was a part of “the Mass” as Luther defined it. Christians could continue to have vestments, liturgical vessels, and images, but they were, for Luther, mere things, severed from the mystery of the Incarnation. Of all the ways Luther reoriented thinking about the Mass, this was the most broadly transformative: the Mass, the whole Mass, is comprised in the narratives of the Last Supper in the synoptic Gospels. Its meaning was to be found in the words, and in the words alone of those narratives – not in anything visible, beyond the words, anything audible beyond the words read aloud. No vestment, no image, no gesture could, according to Luther, participate in, contribute to, amplify, illumine, illustrate the meaning of the Mass. Evangelicals differed on the question of the presence of images and other objects in the spaces where they worshiped, but they were one on the question of the relationship of anything human made to the Eucharist: there was none. All Evangelicals, from Luther through the Anabaptists, severed what had been a protean relationship between the Eucharist and the made world of which the Van der Weyden is now an isolated artifact. Images might remain, as they did in Lutheran churches, but they were no longer to participate in the mystery at the center of the Eucharist. The history of the Mass is usually held as a thing apart from iconoclasm, which has been read as antimaterialist, anti-image, social unrest53. 51. “Diese predigt is dazu geordnet und angefangen, das es sey ein unterricht fur die kinder und einfeltigen. Daruemb sie auch von alters her auff Griegisch heisset Catechismus, das ist, ein kinderlere, so ein yglicher Christ zur not wissen sol, also das wer solchs nicht weis, nicht kuende unter die Christen gezelet und zu keinem Sacrament zugelassen werden. Gleich wie man einen handtwercks man, der seines handtwercks recht und gebrauch nicht weis, aus wirffet und fur untuechtig helt. Derhalben sol man iunge leute die stuecke, so inn den Catechismum odder kinder predigt gehoeren, wol und fertig lernen lassen und mit vleis darynne uben und treibeen”, WA 30/1, p. 129, 11-18. 52. M. LUTHER, Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper, 1528, LW 37, p. 371; M. LUTHER, Vom Abendmahl Christi, Bekenntnis, 1528, WA 26, p. 514. 53. See, for example, P.M. CREW, Calvinist Preaching and Iconoclasm in the Netherlands, 1544-1569, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1978; P. COLLINSON, From Iconoclasm to Iconophobia: The Cultural Impact of the Second English Reformation, Reading, University of Reading, 1986; S. DEYON – A. LOTTIN, Les “casseurs” de l’été

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But, again, if we recognize multi-layered interconnections between the Eucharist and its visual, material, haptic, and sonic environments, then the violence, beginning in the 1520s, from Holland to Zurich, Geneva to Poland, can be seen as tearing apart distinctive sensoria. Specific acts differed from place to place, but vestments were, as in Zurich, given to the poor, or turned to other uses; candlesticks and other objects of precious metals were melted down; crucifixes, in so many places, were either melted, if they were precious metal, or broken apart, if they were stone or wood; retables were shattered or chopped up, as in the Wonderyear across the Habsburg Netherlands; liturgical books were destroyed, their covers mined for their precious stones and metals; some stone sculptures were pulled down, others, as in England, defaced; in some places, such as Strasbourg, the altars were broken up; relics were thrown into charnel houses and reliquaries melted down. It was never simply “images” in the sense of painted or sculpted objects that now rest in museums. In the midst of that violence, Evangelicals began printing small codicil catechisms54. There had been older printed codices for teaching the Ten Commandments55, in preparation for the sacrament of penance. But in the sixteenth century, Evangelicals began printing codices that sought to teach not only the words of the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, that Thomas and other medieval theologians had called to be taught, or the Ten Commandments, as the mendicant orders taught, but, for the first time, texts for baptism and the Eucharist. The earliest of these catechisms appeared in 1527, in Strasbourg56. In 1529, Luther published his far more famous, popular, and influential catechisms, the Enchiridion and the German Catechism, known today as the Small Catechism and the Large Catechism. Those catechisms, though intended for different sorts of readerships, nonetheless taught the same 1566: L’iconoclasme dans le Nord, Paris, Hachette, 1986; M. ASTON, England’s Iconoclasts. Vol. 1: Laws against Images, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1988; C. EIRE, War against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin, New York – Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989; H. BELTING, Bild und Kult: Eine Geschichte des Bilds vor dem Zeitlalter der Kunst, München, Beck, 1990; O. CHRISTIN, Une révolution symbolique: L’iconoclasme huguenot et la reconstruction catholique, Paris, Les Éditions de Minuit, 1991; N. SCHNITZLER, Ikonoklasmus – Bildersturm: Theologischer Bilderstreit und ikonoklastisches Handeln während des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts, München, Fink, 1996. 54. L.P. WANDEL, Reading Catechisms, Teaching Religion, Leiden, Brill, 2015. 55. Andrew CHERTSEY, Jhesus. // The floure of the commaundementes of god with many exam=//ples and auctorytees…, London, Wynkyn de Worde, 1510. 56. DE PVERIS // INSTITVENDIS ECCLE=//siæ Argentinensis // Isagoge, Strasbourg, n.p., 1527.

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core components of “what a Christian needs to know”: three that the medieval Church had traditionally included in catechesis, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Apostles’ Creed; and two that had not appeared in medieval catechesis, baptism and what he called, “the sacrament of the altar”. All the catechisms that achieved widespread publication – Luther’s, Calvin’s Catechism of the Church of Geneva, Peter Canisius’s many different catechisms, and the Heidelberg Catechism – taught the Eucharist. In both his catechisms, Luther treated the Sacrament of the Altar in a separate chapter (Figure 2), immediately following baptism, and after catechumens had learned the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer. In the Small Catechism, which Luther intended for children, catechesis of the Eucharist encompassed five questions: What is the Sacrament of the Altar? Where is it written? What is the benefit of such eating and drinking? How can bodily eating and drinking do such a great thing? Who, then, receives this sacrament worthily57?

Figures 2a-2b: Martin Luther, Deudsch Catechismus Mit einer newen Vorrhede, vnd vermanunge zu der Beicht, Wittenberg, Georg Rhau, 1532. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg. Signature Th Pr 1596. 57. M. LUTHER, The Small Catechism, in R. KOLB – T. WENGERT (eds.), The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 2000, 345-376, pp. 362-363.

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In answer to the first question, of definition, the catechumen was to answer: “It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ himself for us as Christians to eat and to drink”58. Nothing more. The second question, where is it written?, formally instituted Luther’s 1520 exhortations, for all Christians to “grasp and thoroughly ponder the words of Christ”. The catechumen was to answer: The holy evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and St. Paul write thus: Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night in which he was betrayed, took the bread, gave thanks, and broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of me”. In the same way he also took the cup after the supper, gave thanks, and gave it to them and said, “Take, and drink of it, all of you. This cup is the New Testament of my blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me”.

Insofar as we can reconstruct what was, in the medieval Church, oral catechesis, there is no evidence that anyone, besides the celebrant at the Mass, was required to know these words before Luther required it of a person in order to be admitted to the sacrament. In the Large or German Catechism, the words of institution preceded the definition of the sacrament. There Luther made explicit the relation of words to practice: As we heard about Holy Baptism, so must we speak about the second sacrament in the same way, under three headings, stating what it is, what its benefits are, and who is to receive it. All this is established from the words of Christ used to institute it. So everyone who wishes to be a Christian and to go to the sacrament should know them. For we do not intend to admit to the sacrament and administer it to those who do not know what they seek or why they come. The words are these59.

Luther then gave nearly the same narrative, derived from the Gospels and I Corinthians, the reference to betrayal as well as the language of remembrance. Luther defined the sacrament as inseparable from the words children were to learn, here the Large Catechism: Now, what is the Sacrament of the Altar? Answer: It is the true body and blood of the Lord Christ, in and under the bread and wine, which we Christians are commanded by Christ’s word to eat and drink. And just as 58. Ibid., p. 362. 59. M. LUTHER, The Large Catechism, in KOLB – WENGERT (eds.), The Book of Concord (n. 57), 377-480, p. 467.

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we said of baptism that it is not mere water, so we say here, too, that the sacrament is bread and wine, but not mere bread and wine such as is served at the table. Rather, it is bread and wine set within God’s Word and bound to it. It is the Word, I say, that makes this a sacrament and distinguishes it from ordinary bread and wine, so that it is called and truly is Christ’s body and blood60.

In neither catechism, did Luther expand on these words. As the catechumens of the Enchiridion were to learn by heart, “It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine”. In the Large Catechism, he ended the discussion of the definition of the sacrament by returning the catechumen to the words of institution: It is true, indeed, that if you take the Word away from the elements or view them apart from the Word, you have nothing but ordinary bread and wine. But if the words remain, as is right and necessary, then by virtue of them the elements are truly the body and blood of Christ. For as Christ’s lips speak and say, so it is; he cannot lie or deceive61.

In Luther’s Church, knowledge of the words of institution was to precede actual participation in the sacrament. In 1555, Peter Canisius produced what is now called the Large Catechism. Eleven years later, he published the most popular of all his catechisms, also the single most popular catechism of all, the Parvus Catechismus or Small Catechism. Originally intended for school boys, it would ultimately be translated into every European language. In both the Large and the Small Catechisms, Canisius first taught a definition of what a sacrament is, then, like Thomas Aquinas, taught each of the seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, ordination, marriage. As in Thomas’s sermon, the Eucharist occurred third among the sacraments. But Canisius took up the format Luther had chosen in his Small Catechism: question and answer. He structured the teaching of the Eucharist into discrete questions, differing in number according to the size of the catechism. In each, Canisius posed more questions than were asked of any of the other sacraments, but knowledge of the Eucharist was, following what became widespread practice in the sixteenth century, divided into discrete questions and answers, structured in the temporal sequence of the codicil catechism, moving from first question to last, and each answered in words that were to be both fixed and limited, mem60. Ibid., pp. 467-468. 61. Ibid., p. 468.

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orized and repeated. No catechism, not Luther’s, not Calvin’s, not the Heidelberg Catechism, and most strikingly, not Canisius’s catechisms, pointed beyond its pages to other media, other ways of learning the Eucharist. All shared with Luther that words were the means to learn what the Eucharist is and what it means – doctrine, what is taught, was to precede the experience, define it and inform it. In the Small Catechism, as the first question established, there were five principle points of doctrine necessary to know: The first is its truth. The second is that the bread and the wine are converted into the body and blood of Christ. Third, [this sacrament] is to be adored. Fourth is its sacrifice. Fifth and last, the reception of this sacrament62.

The truth of the Eucharist, as the catechumen answered the next question: “Christ, true God and man, is truly and wholly contained in this sacrament, present to us, whenever a properly ordained priest consecrates the bread and the wine by those secret words that were given by Christ”63. The truth of the Eucharist, succinctly stated, was the real presence. The catechumen next learned an equally brief statement on transubstantiation: What is the conversion by those words, by which the priest consecrates this sacrament? Such, that by Christ operating through these words the bread and the wine are changed and transubstantiated into the body and blood of our Lord, and in this way bread and wine are no longer in the Eucharist64.

The next question and answer, on the adoration of the sacrament, reinforced Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist – that was the reason for adoration with body and soul. Canisius’s catechisms number among the earliest efforts formally to teach that the Eucharist is a sacrifice. In his Large Catechism, Canisius offered a lengthier answer on the question of sacrifice65. Like the Large Catechism, the Small Catechism posed a single question, but the catechumen offered a briefer answer: Because it is the sacrifice of the new law, and the clean and bloodless oblation following the bloody sacrifice of Jewish law, which is offered and celebrated for the living and the dead of the Christian faithful in the Mass, 62. P. CANISIUS, INSTITVTIONES // CHRISTIANAE // PIETATIS // SEV // PARVVS CATECHISMVS, Antwerp, Johannes Bellarus, 1575, pp. 44-45. 63. Ibid., p. 45. 64. Ibid., p. 46. 65. H. FILSER – S. LEIMGRUBER (eds.), Petrus Canisius Der Große Katechismus: Summa doctrinae christianae (1555), Regensburg, Schnell & Steiner, 2003, pp. 153-156.

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that the Eucharist is received not only by the faithful, but sacrifice is to be offered daily and at all times in the church of God by the priests for sins of the people in continual remembrance of the Passion and death of our Lord66.

The final question in the Small Catechism taught communion in one kind and the effect: the sacrament communicated grace and everlasting life, which is more effective the more often one receives the sacrament. III. CONCLUSION The great majority of Canisius’s catechisms were published without images. Indeed, more of Luther’s catechisms were published with images than were Canisius’s. This singular edition (Figure 3) points toward what was lost with the severing of so many, many images from thinking about the Eucharist. In small compass, the artist both connected the Eucharist to the other sacraments and distinguished it. Each of the sacraments in this edition received at least one image. Baptism, “the first and most important”, is visually distinct: Christ crucified bleeds into the chalice directly beneath him. The other six sacraments are visually affiliated. Each woodcut contains either a priest or a bishop, depending on who was to administer the sacrament, as well as a cartouche. The cartouche’s shape links the sacraments, as does the consistent presence of the crucified Christ and the arc of blood from his body to the cartouche. Each cartouche, however, is inscribed with a different theological virtue, itself linking the sacrament to the teaching of the medieval Church, as well as scriptural references specific to that sacrament; in the cartouche for the Eucharist, for instance, the references are to the Last Supper texts. So, too, the cartouches are distinguished between those which are fixed to the ground – confirmation and ordination – and those which have a wheel on their base, those which ought to be repeated, the Eucharist and penance, and those which may be repeated, extreme unction and marriage. This particular edition of Canisius is not representative, not of Canisius’s catechisms, among which it is unique, and not of catechisms more generally, the overwhelming majority of which were printed without woodcuts or engravings67. The majority of catechisms – all of Luther’s 66. CANISIUS, INSTITVTIONES // CHRISTIANAE // PIETATIS // SEV // PARVVS CATECHISMVS, pp. 47-48. 67. Another striking exception is Peter Canisius, INSTITVTIONES // CHRISTIANÆ, // seu // PARVVS CATECHISMVS // CATHOLICORVM, // Præcipua Christianae pietatis capita complectens: // PRIMVM quidem à P. IOANNE BAPTISTA Ro-//mano, Societatis Iesu, in rudiorum & idiotarum gratiam, // iuxta SS. Concilij Tridentini decretum sess. 25. imaginibus // distinctus,

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Figure 3: Peter Canisius, Institvtiones Christianae Pietatis Sev Parvvs Catechismvs Catholicorvm, Antwerpen, Johannes Bellerus, 1575. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg. Signature Th Kv G 66.

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and Calvin’s, as well as the Heidelberg Catechism and those of other Evangelicals – taught the catechumen to see words as defining the Eucharist. They severed it from the visible world, beyond the visuality of words on a page, and isolated it, not unlike Rogier van der Weyden’s Altarpiece of the Seven Sacraments today. In so doing, they severed the Eucharist not simply from images, or even from its sensorium, but from the ways it had bound the world of the senses to God. Peter Canisius’s catechisms are one material trace of the transformation of the Eucharist in the sixteenth century. In medieval Christendom, Thomas Aquinas could urge Christians to take Communion regularly because they lived in a world he held to be not only inseparable from but centered around the mystery of the altar. By the third decade of the sixteenth century, the experience of Communion no longer took place in a landscape of shared sacred spaces and topography of holiness, no longer occurred within shared temporal rhythms: the temporale, the sanctorale, the moment of consecration. Luther introduced the notion of the Eucharist as normative – “the Mass” as a single entity defined by a text. He anchored that definition to a narrative even as he severed the Eucharist from the liturgical calendars, temporale, sanctorale, and Marian, as well as from the Divine Office. And in the wake of the ruptures Evangelicals enacted, all catechisms, Lutheran, Reformed, and Catholic taught the children of their respective Churches to conceive of the Eucharist as something the page, black printed words alone on the surface of paper, could teach. Department of History University of Wisconsin 455 North Park Street Madison, WI 53706 USA [email protected]

Lee Palmer WANDEL

nunc vero æreis formis ad D. PETRI CANI-//SII, Societatis Iesu, Institutiones eleganter expressus, Antwerpen, Christopher Plantin, 1589.

MULTO MAGIS MINCHA CORNELIUS A LAPIDE’S INTERPRETATION OF THE HEBREW MINCHA SACRIFICE

Cornelius a Lapide (Cornelis Cornelissen Van Den Steen) was an early seventeenth-century Jesuit (1567-1637) from the Habsburg Netherlands. Although little studied, A Lapide was one of the most prolific and re-printed Catholic Bible commentators of the Early Modern Era. Over the course of his career in Louvain and then Rome, he published commentaries (some of them very large) on every book of the Bible save Psalms and Job. A ten-volume “set” was first produced in Antwerp in 1681 (43 years after A Lapide’s death); major printing houses throughout Europe republished the set continually for more than 200 years and, with scholarly glosses and appendices, it eventually grew to 21 volumes with a two-volume index1. If one judges by reprints, A Lapide’s Bible commentaries were the most successful in their genre, making their way around the globe through the long arm of Jesuit outreach. Seminaries throughout the world used A Lapide sets for clergy formation, and the same volumes then became a “one-stop shop” for Bible-based sermons at the Jesuit missions, a gold-standard for Catholic biblical interpretation and preaching. A Lapide’s influence on Catholic evangelization and preaching, though inconspicuous, is incalculable.

1. Reprints/sets: A Lapide’s most important reprints and sets are catalogued in R. NOLL’s study Die Mariologischen Grundlinien im exegetischen Werk des Cornelius a Lapide SJ (1567-1637), Regensburg, Pustet, 2003, p. 285, along with more extensive biographical information. Noll cites these as the most important editions: Opera omnia, Antwerp, 1681 (10 vols.); Venice, 1717 (11 vols.); Turin, 1838 (12 vols.); Paris, 1840-46 (11 vols.); Paris, 1858-63 (21 vols., w/ 3 Supplements and annotations by CRAMPON and PERONNE, used for this paper and abbreviated as CSS); Lyon, 1865-66 (20 vols.); Paris, 1874 (26 vols.). Latest Latin edition of the Gospels commentary, Turin, 1935 (4 vols.) and commentary on the Pauline epistles, Turin, 1928-30 (3 vols.), edited by A. PADOVANI. Alexander Street Press has also provided transcriptions of the Pauline epistles (Antwerp, 1635 ed.), Pentateuch (Antwerp, 1714 ed.) and Gospels (Antwerp, 1732 ed.) commentaries on a searchable database, the Digital Library of the Catholic Reformation (DLCR, Alexander Street Press, 2019) (also used for this paper). For an exhaustive listing of A Lapide’s works and their editions prior to 1859 see the 15 columns of Augustine and Alois DEBACKER’s Bibliothèque des Écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus (Cinquième série) (DEBACKER 1859, pp. 413-421).

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However, when one examines his line-by-line (sometimes word-byword) comment on Holy Writ, the entries may seem a mish-mash of word analysis, citations, doctrinal treatises and pious anecdotes; and extracting a theological topic from the commentary, such as the sacrificial character of the Eucharist, can be a challenge. But there is a basic order to A Lapide’s remarks. The organizing principles of “fourfold sense” (quadriga) are the foundation to all of his comments and quotations. The fourfold sense is a means of interpretation that sees up to four levels of meaning (sensus) in the sacred text: literal, allegorical, tropological and anagogical. Upon this fourfold matrix A Lapide adds his own specific and meticulous interpretive instructions, called Canones2. The Canones are worthy study in themselves and we will only examine a few of them here, but each genre of biblical books has a distinctive and for the most part unrepeated set of hermeneutic directives3, e.g. Pauline Epistles (1614 – 45 Canones), Pentateuch (1616 – 42 Canones), Minor Prophets (1625 – 35 Canones). A Lapide threads these Canonic principles through his copious text to work in tandem with fourfold commentary. To this point, A Lapide’s sixth Canon (of 45) on the Pauline Epistles (his first published list of canons) explains the basis of fourfold interpretation: Four are the senses of Holy Scripture, Literal, Allegorical, Tropological or Moral, and Anagogical: Which [Nicolas of] Lyra describes in [his] prologue on the Bible: The Literal teaches what took place; The Allegorical sense what you ought to believe (namely about Christ and the Church); The Moral sense what you ought to do; the Anagogical what you must hope/strive for4. 2. For a succinct article on the Canones see R. GALDOS, De Canonibus exegeticis apud P. Cornelius a Lapide, in Verbum Domini 17 (1937) 146-152. In 1693 Richard SIMON, despite a typically abrasive view of post-Tridentine commentators, mentions A Lapide’s Canones as having some value: “Il suffit qu’on sache qu’il [A Lapide] suit cette méthode dans tout son Commentaire sur les Évangiles. On y trouve le sens littéral, le tropologique & l’allégorique. Il fait venir à son sujet diverses histoires, sans examiner avec assez de soin si elles sont vraies ou fausses. Il est outre cela Théologien & controversiste quand l’occasion s’en présente. … Il est plus judicieux dans les Canons qu’il a mis au-devant de son [Pauline] Commentaire, y ayant inséré plusieurs observations très utiles (R. SIMON, Histoire critique des principaux commentateurs du Nouveau Testament, Rotterdam, Chez Reinier Leers, 1693, pp. 657, 659, accessed through DLCR database). 3. Loreto Press’ recent edition of A Lapide’s entire 1 & 2 Corinthians and Galatians commentary in English translation (Fitzwilliam, NH, Loreto Publications, 2016), despite a valuable and substantial contribution to A Lapide studies, contains what can only be called a glaring error when, on the title page, it mistakenly refers the reader to the Canones that A Lapide wrote for the Gospels. To clarify, the Pauline corpus has an entirely different set of Canons (yet untranslated). 4. “Quatuor sunt sensus sacrae Scripturae, Litteralis, Allegoricus, Tropologicus vel Moralis, & Anagogicus: quos Lyranus prologo in Biblia hoc carmine describit: Littera

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He then gives an illustration of how the city of Jerusalem can be seen in each of the four ways: For example, the city of Jerusalem, says Eucherius [contemporary of John Cassian], to the letter [literal] means a noted city of Judea, allegorically the Church, tropologically, the faith of soul, anagogically the heavenly fatherland5.

All of A Lapide’s verse commentary is founded upon at least one of these four senses. And in 1614 the fourfold approach was nothing new: theologians such as Origen began to articulate a theory of multiple senses as early as the fourth century6. Paul himself, in Gal 4,21-31, recognizes the validity of the approach when he discusses the admittedly dubious “allegory” of Hagar and Sarah. However in the early-seventeenth century ad fontes humanism had reached full bloom and there was an acute (and growing) awareness of the importance of sitz-im-leben. Thus, one of A Lapide’s primary goals is a very robust literal interpretation of the biblical text. Literal sense, for him, is not merely an analysis of the grammar and words within their historical context (although it is that), it accounts for genre of speech (metaphor, parable etc.) of which the author of the text is aware and considers the intention of the author as the primary objective for the literal meaning. However, A Lapide frequently develops his comments along a clear line of recognition that the human author is unaware of the full extent of the literal meaning, particularly in prophetic speech. Here he turns to the realm of providence and interprets the text in a “higher” literal sense (my term), from the intention of the divine author, not locked in history, but merging with history. Although his comments begin with the “lower” literal sense of the intention of the human author, he will use the “higher” literal sense of providence as an extra-historical platform to develop the spiritual senses, particularly allegorical. When it comes to sacrifice, A Lapide sees the Jewish sacrifices connecting or tapping into this divine authorial intention. Thus, explaining how A Lapide sees the Jewish mincha in light of the Eucharist requires an investigation into his approach to the “lower” and “higher” literal meaning of the text. In Canon 36 of his Pentateuch commentary, A Lapide explains with scriptural examples gesta docet; quid credas (scilicet de Christo & Ecclesia) Allegoria; Moralis, quid agas; quid speres, Anagogia” (CSS XVIII, p. 22b). All A Lapide translations ours. 5. “V. g. Urbs Ierusalem, ait Eucherius, ad litteram significat urbem notam Iudaeae, allegoricè Ecclesiam, tropologicè animam fidelem, anagogicè patriam caelestem” (ibid.) 6. ORIGEN, On First Principles: Book IV, trans. and introd. R. GREER, preface H.U. VON BALTHASAR (The Classics of Western Spirituality), Mahwah, NJ, Paulist, 1979, pp. 171-216.

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how God authors the literal sense through an inspired human (more on this below). Of course, in terms of the quadriga, the literal sense can be conflated with another, spiritual sense, whether, a poetic allegory, moral lesson (tropology) or an inspirational message (anagogy). As Canon 6 continues, A Lapide compasses his approach to the literal sense as the primary referent to the other three “spiritual” senses: [A]ll Scripture has a literal sense, however, not always the others [senses]; rather, in the NT allegory is scarce; in the Epistles tropology is rare. In turn that is the literal sense what the letter means firstly, whether it is fitting, or metaphorical, or parabolic: moreover the allegorical and tropological [senses] ought to depend on it [i.e. the literal sense] and correspond to it in apt proportion, with the result that it seems born out of itself. As the literal [sense] is that which the words in the first place mean, so that is allegorical which the things (“res”) that are signified by the literal sense, refer to. Therefore the better and more fully the allegories and tropologies correspond to the literal sense, [the interpretation] is all the more suitable and genuine7.

There are a number of noteworthies here: the first is that “allegory is scarce” in the New Testament, coupled with “tropology is rare” in the Epistles. This seems to be the case because the literal meaning is in full correspondence to one of the spiritual senses i.e. allegory is scarce in the NT because the NT is the source of allegories in the OT. In a similar respect tropology often overlaps with the literal meaning in Paul’s epistles, so there is no need to “spiritualize” a literal meaning that is already tropological. Because A Lapide acknowledges the literal meaning as the foundation of biblical interpretation, the spiritual senses do not exist independently, but are “born out of” the literal and, to the extent that they are in “apt proportion” to the literal, become the most “genuine” sense. 7. “…Ubi Nota, omnem Scripturam habere sensum litteralem, non autem semper alios; imò in novo Testamento vix est allegoria; in epistolis rarò tropologia. Porro litteralis sensus est is quem primò littera significat, sive is proprius sit, sive metaphoricus, aut parabolicus: huic autem inniti debet allegoricus & tropologicus, eique apta proportione respondere, ut quasi ex ipso natus videatur. Sicut enim litteralis est is, quem verba primò significant: ita allegoricus est is, quem res per litteralem sensum significatae significant. Quo ergo meliùs & pleniùs allegoria & tropologia respondet sensui litterali, eo magis apta & genuina est” (CSS XVIII, p. 22b). A Lapide appears to use the term “genuine” as a technical category to describe the quality of interpretation. The genuine sense is not a sense in itself, but a descriptor of the dynamic of correspondence between the literal sense and one of the spiritual senses. In short, the “genuine sense” is accuracy. Because genuine sense appears to be an objective goal for A Lapide, the recognition of this dynamic places a great deal of interpretive weight on accurate correspondence between the literal meaning and whichever spiritual sense connects to it.

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To show his approach to the quadriga at work we turn to three sections of A Lapide’s Old Testament commentary concerning the mincha grain sacrifice, viz. his introductory remarks on Leviticus, the seminal mincha text of Leviticus 2 and the prophet Malachi’s anticipation of a universal mincha (Mal 1,11) interpreted as the sacrifice of the Mass. Throughout his remarks A Lapide’s objective is, primarily through use of the literal sense, to show that grain sacrifices are revelatory of the Eucharist. His strategy is to make comments on the historical/literal sense of grain sacrifices as they occur biblically and extra-biblically in order to confront Protestant objections to the Mass as a sacrifice from a Scripture-based, contextual/literal approach. Above all, because he sees the sacrificial character of the Eucharist within the deep structure of the inspired biblical canon, A Lapide strives to relate this sacrificial character through an authentic and vigorous application of Old Testament texts8. We now dive a little deeper into the copious volumes toward the specific subject of sacrifice. I. LEVITICUS: MINCHA AND THE SACRIFICIAL PRINCIPLE A Lapide’s 1616 Leviticus commentary opens with four prefatory remarks about the nature and variety of Old Testament sacrifices. The fourth point, directly to our purposes here, lists the different kinds of sacrifices: There were three kinds of [Hebrew] sacrifices; first, there was the holocaust; second, the peace victim; third, the victim for sin; to which you must attach [quibus adde] a fourth, namely the mincha, or sacrifice from simila flour or bread, which the sacrifice of Christ, because it is figured by these [Hebrew sacrifices], encloses all into itself9.

Notice in the quote that A Lapide, with his use of quibus adde, has singled out the grain sacrifice and acknowledges it as unusual. In addition, Leviticus’ ordering of wheat sacrifice in the midst of animal sacrifices (directly after the holocaust sacrifice [ch. 1] and prior to the sin and peace offerings [chs. 3 & 4]) becomes significant in establishing sacrificial unity between the Eucharist (Last Supper) and the Crucifixion. Thus in 8. By “authentic” here I mean by A Lapide’s standards, which is through fidelity to the literal sense of the text. 9. “Nota Quartò, Sacrificiorum tres erant species; prima, erat holocaustum; secunda, victim pacifica; tertia, hostia pro peccato; quibus adde quartam, scilicet mincha, seu sacrificium ex simila aut pane, quae omnia in se continet sacrificium Christi, quod hisce figurabatur” (CSS II, p. 3).

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Leviticus’ chapter sequence, the “unbloody” mincha sacrifice is among the “bloody” holocaust, sin and peace offerings, rather than after them as a kind of “lesser form”. A Lapide’s introductory remarks also include the all-important definition of sacrifice, which had been a bone of contention since the beginnings of the Reformation: In his Apology for the Confession of Augsburg in 1531 Philip Melanchthon taunted the Romanists with failing to give a definition of sacrifice. While they poured out a spat of books to assert that the Mass is a sacrifice, he said, not one of them had defined their basic term10.

Here is the definition of A Lapide from 1616: Sacrifice is the offering of a sensible thing to God by a legitimate minister, through real change [realem immutationem], witnessing his supreme lordship and our subjection11.

Key to A Lapide’s definition of sacrifice, and what makes sacrifice distinctive, is the principle of “real change”. He goes on to elaborate what “real change” must be, since it sets apart a sacrifice from an offering/ oblation. I say through real change: because in this [change] is distinguished a sacrifice from an offering, which is offered to God “res integra”, as is clear in the offering of the tenth part and first fruits; truly in a sacrifice the thing offered [res oblata] is killed if it is ensouled, but if it was inanimate, torn up, ground/pounded down, burnt, or poured out and thus changed and destroyed12.

Centuries before, Aquinas highlighted this same biblical distinction between sacrifice and oblation in his Summa Theologica (IIa-IIae, q. 85). Although A Lapide does not reference the Angelic Doctor here, we can clearly hear the echo. In his third article, Aquinas describes the sacrificial principle of change noted above: 10. “Toto iam decennio infinita pene volumina ediderunt adversarii de sacrificio, neque quisquam eorum definitionem sacrificii hactenus posuit” (from P. MELANCHTHON’s Opera omnia, vol. 1, Wittenberg, 1562, p. 108; quoted in F. CLARK, Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation, Westminster, MD, The Newman Press, 1960, p. 442). 11. “Sacrificium est oblatio rei sensibilis à legitimo ministro facta Deo, per realem immutationem, ad testandum supremum illius dominium & nostram subiectionem” (CSS II, p. 3). 12. “Dico per realem immutationem: quia in hoc distinguitur sacrificium ab oblatione, quòd in hac res integra offerebatur Deo, uti patet in oblatione decimarum & primitiarum; in sacrificio verò res oblata occidebatur si esset animata, sin esset inanima, conscindebatur, conterebatur, comburebatur, vel effundebatur; itaque immutabatur & interimebatur” (ibid.).

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A “sacrifice” properly speaking, requires that something be done to the thing which is offered to God, for instance animals were slain and burnt, the bread is broken, eaten, blessed. … On the other hand an “oblation” is properly the offering of something to God even if nothing be done thereto, thus we speak of offering money or bread at the altar, and yet nothing is done to them. Hence every sacrifice is an oblation, but not conversely13.

Within this same question, Aquinas also argues that sacrifice “is of the natural law”. …because [man] derives his knowledge from sensibles … it is a dictate of natural reason that man should use certain sensibles, by offering them to God in sign of the subjection and honor due to Him, like those who make certain offerings to their lord in recognition of this authority … consequently the offering of sacrifice is of the natural law14.

Aquinas’ argument for sacrifice being part of natural law also will align with A Lapide’s strategy of using of examples from pagan grain sacrifice ceremonies to demonstrate unfolding natural revelation toward the Eucharist as the ultimate “grain sacrifice”. Normally, as A Lapide works toward the literal sense of the inspired text, he first evaluates the Hebrew or Greek original vis-à-vis its Latin Vulgate renderings. He also relates quotes from pagan Greek and Roman authors to illustrate extra-biblical context or foil a particular biblical word or concept. However, his deeper, more covert intention looks to unveil a divine architecture or “higher” literal sense of God’s intention within historical patterns of pagan culture (natural revelation) along with the divinely revealed Jewish sacrifices. As A Lapide strings together ancient quotes in a kind of “pagan catena”, the extra-biblical materials become natural-law prooftexts that align with his biblical evidence. In terms of sacrifice, these examples help A Lapide establish how the same pagan sacrificial practices (here the sacrifice of wheat) evolve along crosscultural lines and validate a natural revelation moving concurrently with Jewish salvation history. A Lapide’s fundamental point is that the intention of an omnipresent God, in the higher literal sense, orients both Jewish and pagan grain sacrifices to the sacrifice of Christ, both on the cross and in the Eucharist.

13. Thomas AQUINAS, Summa Theologica: Complete English Edition in Five Volumes. Volume Three: IIa IIae QQ. 1-148 (Question 85, Art 3 – Of Sacrifice), trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Westminster, MD, Christian Classics, 1981 (reprint from Benziger Brothers, 1948), pp. 1548-1551 (quote on p. 1551). 14. Ibid., q. 85 art. 1, sed contra.

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In light of this sacrificial principle of change and A Lapide’s interest in highlighting the grain sacrifice’s relation to natural law, we now move to A Lapide’s comment on the mincha grain sacrifice instruction at Leviticus 2. II. LEVITICUS 2: THE SENSES

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MINCHA SACRIFICE

A Lapide reserves most of his literal commentary on Leviticus 2 to the first verse, which sets out the basic elements of mincha: fine flour, oil and frankincense. 1 When any one shall offer an oblation of sacrifice to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour, and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense (DRB)15.

Out of this seminal instruction, A Lapide’s more than 1200-word commentary will build bridges from the literal elements of the mincha to the Eucharist as a sacrifice. We detail here the most substantial comment section, regarding the words “oblation of sacrifice” (oblationem sacrificii). A Lapide opens his remarks with emphasis about the sacrificial character of Hebrew mincha. He continues to return to this point because ultimately he will use it as foundational evidence for the sacrificial character of the Eucharist. His comments first highlight the divine initiative; opening with the question, “Why did God institute this mincha sacrifice?” rather than “Why did the Hebrews offer the mincha sacrifice?”. The question reveals A Lapide’s supra-historical interpretive objective, viz. he wants to arrive at the divine intention through the literal meaning of the text. So beginning from the higher literal sense of God as “divine author” he develops the lower literal/historical sense through lived humanity. Using a series of examples, A Lapide moves between pagan and biblical evidence of pre-Christian wheat sacrifices and funnels both streams toward the Eucharist as a sacrifice. His examples begin with Plutarch’s story of how the Spartan legislator Lycurgus allowed wheat sacrifice for those who could not afford animals16. Then he shifts to the Hebrew people, who provided their 15. I have used the Douay-Rheims English throughout as it gives the most literal rendering of A Lapide’s Sixto-Clementine Vulgate. 16. “Lycurgus made the sacrifices in Sparta very inexpensive, so that people might be able always to honour the gods readily and easily from what they had at hand” (PLUTARCH, Moralia. Volume III: Sayings of Kings and Commanders. Sayings of Romans. Sayings of

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priests with sacrificial bread which became a “convivium” with God’s food called forth from the altar of God, to Malachi’s prophecy of how there will be a “universal mincha” (which we will examine below), back to Roman wheat sacrifices to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, and then how the Greek Septuagint translation of mincha, (“karposin” or “karpomo”), means “fruits given to God” and is connected to “holokorpoma” – the holocaust of burnt offering. A Lapide closes this remarkable spectrum of citations with Numbers 15, in which a mincha of flour and wine are offered with the sacrificial animal17. A Lapide then uses the act of holocaust, or whole burnt offering, to transition into a second “pagan catena” that shows the sprinkling of wheat and salt (“im-molo”) on the head of a burnt offering to be a cross-cultural practice. Here he uses direct quotes from Lucan, Virgil, Horace and Plautus to demonstrate the connections between bread immolation, wine libation and a sacrificial victim. Having presented cross-cultural evidence for pre-Christian wheat sacrifices, the Jesuit uses these “case studies” to explain the definitive mincha in its Eucharistic antitype. Thus his opening foray into the literal sense of Lev 2,1 establishes the “horizontal”, historical sense of grain sacrifices across time and cultures from the “vertical” perspective of God’s providential design through natural and divinely revealed patterns. We soon move to the allegorical and tropological senses of the wheat sacrifice; however, before doing so it may be interesting to briefly evaluate how A Lapide’s “early-modern” literal approach holds up alongside a modern, historical-critical study. In its fairly thorough entry on minḥâ (i.e. mincha), the TDOT gives basic biblical word-occurrence data, historical contexts, and theology that we can evaluate vis-à-vis A Lapide’s assessment of the mincha as a sacrifice: The noun minḥâ occurs 211 times in the Hebrew OT, … Of these, 113 occurrences are in the Pentateuch, 44 in the Prophets, 33 in the Deuteronomistic history, 16 in the Chronicler’s history, and only 6 in the Psalms. This distribution derives not least from the two main semantic specifications “sacrifice, offering” and “gift”. Given the broad temporal distribution, the occurrences in the Pentateuch are especially ill-served by a summary definition18. Spartans. The Ancient Customs of the Spartans. Sayings of Spartan Women. Bravery of Women, trans. F.C. BABBIT (Loeb Classical Library), Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1931, p. 245, ll. 8-9. 17. Although A Lapide has extensive comment on the wine element of the mincha, I limited my research to the bread aspect of the mincha for this article. Obviously with the wine ablution there are other profound connections to the Eucharist. 18. H.-J. FABRY, ‫ ׅמנְ ָחה‬minḥâ, in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament [TDOT], vol. 8, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1997, 407-421, p. 412.

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Although the TDOT deems “gift” as one of “two main semantic specifications” it fails to mention the fact that, used to mean “gift”, mincha refers almost exclusively to YHWH and only twice describes a gift-giving between humans. Further along the TDOT acknowledges this important detail in the section about the theology of the mincha: Despite the enormous temporal-historical scope encompassed by these writings, it is striking that minḥâ here is almost never understood as “tribute” or “gift” (with two exceptions: Hos 10:6 [gift (RSV “tribute”) to the great king] and Isa. 39:1 [to Hezekiah]. In all other cases Yahweh is either explicitly or implicitly the goal of the minḥâ. Not only do the prophets rarely use this word (the occurrences in Ezekiel do not belong to the basic stratum of the draft constitution, but rather to the late exilic [nasi] and the Zadokite strata), but with few exceptions they also always use it in parallel constructions with other sacrificial terms. That is, they view the minḥâ basically only in connection with the other sacrifices and offerings. … minḥâ is [also] used in an absolute state…, suffixes are not common…, and related verbs do not really reveal any fixed linguistic structures19.

Thus, the TDOT finds a nearly unqualified, although purely historical, correspondence between mincha offering and sacrifice. For A Lapide, this correspondence illustrates God’s providence within history, a pointer to the Eucharist as a wheat sacrifice and its connection to the flesh sacrifice at Calvary. In terms of the allegorical sense, to which we now turn, we might also add that the TDOT corroborates an allegorical conflation of the “mid-afternoon mincha” and the mid-afternoon sacrifice of Christ on the cross; that is to say, Christ becomes united to the mincha sacrifice offered at literally the same time as his crucifixion. All these examples illuminate the rabbinic designation “minḥâ prayer” ([tpillat] minḥâ) as the afternoon prayer. Although the minḥâ was also presented in the morning as a cereal offering, the actual time of prayer was associated with the evening offering at which the people were assembled. This minḥâ worship took place at the ninth hour (3 p.m.), when the evening offering, the cereal offering, and the incense offering were presented (cf. Mishnah Pesah. v.1; Acts 3:1; 10:3, 30)20.

As noted above, the mincha flour had its own special role in the sacrificial system being offered both with the flesh sacrifice as “first fruits” (libamen) and as a separate, independent sacrifice21. A Lapide addresses this important theological point in a comment note: 19. 20. 21. Alfred

Ibid., p. 415. Ibid., p. 420. Interestingly, in a 1999 article, anthropologist Mary Douglas uses a book by MARX (Les Offrandes végétales dans l’Ancien Testament: Du tribut au repas

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Note. In every flesh sacrifice, which is burned, for example, cow, sheep or goat, a wheat sacrifice was added; but not to the converse: for one is able to offer the mincha, or farrum or flour alone, without meat. Therefore oil, incense, flour and salt must be added to every flesh sacrifice22.

Allegorically, the mincha’s twofold role as both an auxiliary (sprinkled on flesh) and independent offering aligns with the sacrifice of Christ. In an auxiliary way, the mincha, in the sense of Eucharist has its origin at the Last Supper and is “sprinkled” on the blood sacrifice of Christ at Calvary. The allegorical meaning of this wheat sacrifice was, that there might be signified Christ’s flesh and that the sacrifice even of bread so also of wine had and has a rationale in the Eucharist. And also whence the flesh of Christ is called bread, Jeremiah 11.19. John 6.v.35.47.51.58. For this is the mincha sacrifice, which must be offered by Christian Gentiles in every place and throughout the whole world, preaches Malachi c.1 v.11. For just as the strangled animal victims signify the sacrifice of Christ on the cross so the mincha sacrifice signifies the sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist, under the species of bread and wine23. eschatologique, Leiden, Brill, 1994) to explain how the mincha was “the prime sacrificial form … [and is] never assimilated into the performance of animal sacrifice, but remains always distinctively subject to its own rules. This reverses the common idea that it is a mere accompaniment” (M. DOUGLAS, The Eucharist: Its Continuity with the Bread Sacrifice of Leviticus, in Modern Theology 15 [1999] 209-224, pp. 213-214). Douglas continues: “When attention shifts from the animals to the cereals it suddenly appears that it is the cereal offerings which are calling the shots, not the other way round; the bulls are only dancing (as it were) to the tune of the tenths of ephahs of flour” (p. 217). She presents further evidence that the words of Genesis for describing the pleasing odour of Noah’s sacrifice, which occasioned God’s change of heart, are used again repeatedly in Leviticus for the pleasing odour of the cereal offering, thus giving the latter convenantal [sic] status, as well as referring to the first covenant which was with all humankind” (p. 217). The anthropologist also surmises that the importance of the vegetable sacrifice likely “had been brushed aside in favour of nationalist exclusiveness in Deuteronomy and ritual cleanness in the rabbinical traditions. Somewhere along the line, the continuity of writing and reading Leviticus was broken” (p. 218). Although A Lapide’s sophistication is restricted to Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, his instincts concerning the central importance of the Hebrew grain sacrifice continue to bear the freight of Douglas’ anthropological contributions from the late twentieth century. 22. “In omni carneo sacrificio, quo immolabatur, v.g. bos, ovis aut capra, adhibebatur & sacrificium farreum; sed non è converso: poterat enim mincha, sive far & simila offerri sola sine carne. In omni ergo sacrificio carneo adhibendum erat oleum, thus, simila & sal” (CSS II, p. 19b). 23. “Allegorica causa huius sacrificii farrei fuit, ut significaretur Christi carnem & sacrificium, etiam panis, ut & vini, rationem habuisse & habere in Eucharistia. Unde & caro Christi vocatur panis, Ierem. 11. 19. Ioannis 6. v. 35. 47. 51. 58. Hoc est enim sacrificium mincha [note A Lapide’s allusion here to the Eucharistic consecration], quod à Gentibus Christianis in omni loco, totoque orbe offerendum praedixit Malachias c. 1. v. 11. Sicut enim victimae animalium iugulatorum significabant sacrificium Christi in cruce occisi: ita sacrificium mincha significabat sacrificium Christi in Eucharistia, sub speciebus panis & vini” (CSS II, p. 15a).

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However, as we move into Christian history, the Eucharistic mincha becomes an independent sacrifice and the sole vertical remnant of the Jewish sacrificial system (i.e. a divinely willed sacrifice), revisioned by Christ as the Eucharistic sacrifice. Here is where A Lapide begins to illustrate the tropological sense as he moves the sensus of the wheat sacrifice to the servants of Christ. The bridge between allegory and tropology occurs in the preparation of the mincha (Lev 2,4-7), which can either be burned with no alteration as pure flour, or prepared in one of three ways: baked, fried or grilled. A Lapide gives a second level of allegory connecting the mincha triplex preparation with the “preparation” of the flesh of Christ – “baked” in utero, “fried” by the passion, “grilled” in his death, and finally bonded into his Church through the Eucharist24. Then turning to the Church per se, the Jesuit relates how each kind of bread preparation comes to fruition in the lives of individual believers; this is the tropological sense. Tropology is concerned with Christian living, and in this case A Lapide connects the “real change” that takes place within the mincha preparation to the deaths of Jewish and Christian martyrs. This preparation designates the active suffering of the martyr as being (sometimes literally) baked (the companions of Daniel), fried (the seven Maccabees) or grilled (St. Lawrence etc.) to be changed into a type of Eucharist. A Lapide’s heart is very close to the martyrs, almost obsessively so, as we find references to the martyrs continuously throughout his entire body of work. Here we also find a strong element of ecclesiological continuity as A Lapide aligns the heroes of the Old Testament, such as the companions of Daniel, with the Christian martyrs, such as St. Ignatius of Antioch, who described himself as bread in the mouth of lions as he became the grain offering. These tropological meanings close this section on the seminal mincha text of Leviticus 2. We have seen how A Lapide’s approach to the literal sense of a wheat sacrifice actively seeks God’s intention across pre-Christian cultures (Hebrew, Greek and Roman). And then articulates the fulfillment of both divine and natural revelation in the Eucharistic sacrifice of Christ, both literally and allegorically. Finally, through allegorical and tropological meanings, he illustrates how both Christ and the Jewish & Christian martyrs are the “prepared mincha” through the offerings and sacrifices of their lives. It is also important to note that the tropological meaning is a spiritual derivation which can be quite removed from the

24. Ibid., p. 17a.

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literal sense of mincha25. The literal vs. tropological interpretation will become significant as A Lapide confronts a primary theological adversary, John Calvin, over the interpretation of Mal 1,11. We turn to it now. III. MALACHI, MINCHA AND THE “DOUBLE-LITERAL” SENSE OF PROPHECY As we move into Malachi’s prophecy about a universal mincha we also add an important element to the literal meaning discussed above, namely that, with prophetic speech, the literal sense may work on two levels. This “double-literal” meaning acknowledges the intention of the divine author (what I call “higher literal”) along with the inspired (but fallible) human author when the human author is unaware of the full scope of content in his prophecy26. This idea of multiple literal senses is not a new one, but is rarely discussed27. I believe that A Lapide uses this hermeneutic to close a widening gap between a strictly historicalgrammatical, univocal view of the biblical text, and a faith-based hermeneutic that is multivalent and tries to see God’s eternal and dynamic interaction within history. The double-literal sense becomes precisely the hermeneutical tool that bridges the gap between history and eternity through authorial intent28. Both Augustine and Aquinas addressed this 25. Although A Lapide devotes most of his own material to uncovering the literal sense, when moving into the spiritual sense he will frequently highlight Catholic tradition with a Christian “catena”, a string of quotes from Church Fathers through medieval masters to his own contemporaries. These catenas are also a hint that he is going to close his remarks on the allegorical or tropological sense; thus a chronological (forward or backward) series of quotes generally indicates the conclusion of a comment section. 26. In his article Problems of the Literal and Spiritual Senses of Scripture, in Louvain Studies 20 (1995) 134-146, pp. 138-139, J.A. FITZMYER has some brief remarks on the “dynamic aspect” or “broader extension” of the literal sense (particularly in light of the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s Interpreting the Bible in the Church, #80). However he does not pursue a “double literal” sense in depth or in context of the history of exegesis. 27. A notable exception is Wim François’ very interesting and to my knowledge, unmatched article, Augustine’s Heritage in Later Medieval Biblical Scholarship (1200-1500), in Studi Medievali 55/1 (2014) 25-73. Over the course of nearly 50 pages, François traces the hermeneutical influence of Augustine upon medieval masters Joachim of Flora, Hugh of St. Victor, Thomas Aquinas & Giles of Rome, Robert Grosseteste & Roger Bacon, Nicolas of Lyra, Jean Gerson and Augustinian hermit Jaime Perez de Valencia, demonstrating how the sensus litteralis became more and more of a priority for Bible interpreters and the standard of an authentic method. 28. From the article of François, it appears that medieval masters believed that the human author knew both the literal and prophetic (or higher literal) sense. A Lapide seems to think that the prophetic element is not known to the human author, but is still “literal” in terms of its divine authorship.

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unique aspect of the literal “dual-authorship” of an inspired text. Lutheran theologian George Lindbeck made a brief reference to the possibility in a 1988 conference transcript: Aquinas’s literal sense has to do with intention [“Sensus literalis est, quem auctor intendit” – S.T. 1, q.1, a.10]. Following Aquinas’s line of thought, one can speak of the literal sense in two different ways. Literal sense refers to the intention of the given author and to the intention of the divine author29.

The “double-literal” hermeneutic adds a supra-historical element to interpretation which can account for theological developments within a faith tradition, thus the interpreter avoids becoming locked into the sole intention of the human author and his or her context. [Christians] read Scripture in the living community of the Church and, therefore, on the basis of the fundamental decisions through which it has become historically efficacious, precisely those that laid the foundations of the Church. One must not separate the text from this living context. In this sense, Scripture and tradition form an inseparable whole, and this is what Luther, at the dawn of the awakening of historical awareness, could not see. He believed that a text could have only one meaning, but such univocity does not exist, and modern historiography has long since abandoned the idea. The fact that in the nascent Church the Eucharist was understood from the beginning as a sacrifice, even in a document like the Didache, which is so difficult and marginal in relation to the great tradition, is an interpretative key of primary importance30.

Seeing the Eucharist as a sacrifice is one such theological development that is rooted in the literal sense of the Jewish mincha. In his commentary A Lapide strives to merge the early-modern “awakening of historical 29. G. LINDBECK made this remark during the “discussion” section (p. 152) in Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: The Ratzinger Conference on Bible and Church. Essays by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Raymond E. Brown, William H. Lazareth, George Lindbeck and The Story of an Encounter by Paul T. Stallsworth, ed. R. NEUHAUS, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1989. Also Erich Auerbach’s seminal essay “Figura” communicates the same principles (although he does not use the designation “double-literal”) (E. AUERBACH, Figura, in Scenes from the Drama of European Literature [Theory and History of Literature, 9], Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press, pp. 11-76). Auerbach, a Jew, was seeking to demonstrate the importance and relevance of the Old Testament to the Nazi regime, and so, much akin to the “higher literal” sense, used the term “Figura” to designate divinely willed OT persons and images that establish a vertical connection to salvation history and are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. See A. ZAKAI – D. WEINSTEIN, Erich Auerbach and His “Figura”: An Apology for the Old Testament in an Age of Aryan Philology, in Religions 3 (2012) 320-338. 30. J. RATZINGER, The Theology of the Liturgy: The Sacramental Foundation of Christian Existence, ed. M.J. MILLER, trans. J. SAWARD – K. BAKER – H. TAYLOR (Collected Works, 2), San Francisco, CA, Ignatius Press, 2014, p. 546.

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awareness” with doctrinal teaching, not only in his defense of the ecclesial tradition of sacrifice, but through his openness to manifold literal meanings of the text. At times, when dealing with words or phrases that are highly charged and difficult to translate, he will show how different senses of the same Hebrew word can illustrate different authorial intentions and levels of meaning. He addresses this expanded notion of the literal sense in Canon 36 from his Pentateuch commentary: [There are a]lso many, not only types and subordinate types, but also dissimilar and disparate [ones], that can be literal sense of Sacred Scripture31.

Perhaps this may be a dubious notion, so A Lapide follows his claim of multiple literal senses with references from doctrinal “heavyweights” to demonstrate the legitimate tradition: Augustine, Aquinas and the Fourth Lateran Council32. All of them, following the original insight of Augustine, point out that Gen 1,1 can be interpreted on two literal levels: Where the Lateran Council out of Genesis 1 “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth”, according to two literal senses, the two conclude the truth, namely, that the world began as the words “In the beginning” signify “the beginning of time”, and that nothing existed before the world was made, as the same words “in the beginning” mean “before everything” [i.e. before time]33.

Thus his “double-literal” example refers to both/either the horizontal aspect of an event as the beginning of history and/or the vertical perspective of God’s eternal action, before everything, outside of time. The second literal sense, when it occurs, applies only to the eternal action and intention of God at work within history. Discerning how this higher literal meaning is at work is a large part, I believe, of A Lapide’s project, although he does not make it explicit most times. In another example from Canon 36, A Lapide recalls the words spoken by Caiphas: “it is better for us that one man die for an entire people”, and shows how two literal meanings of the same text can oppose one another in terms of the intention of their “author”:

31. “Plures etiam, non tantùm typicos, & typioè subordinatos, sed etiam dissimiles & disparatos, posse esse sensus literales S. Scripturae” (CSS I, p. 33a). 32. “S. Aug. l. 12. Conf. c. 18. 25. 26. 31. & 32 quem citat & sequitur D. Tho. 1. p. q. 2. a. 10. in corp. idque colligitur ex Conc. Lateranensi c. Firmiter de sum. Trinit” (ibid.). 33. “Ubi [the Lateran] Concilium ex illo Gen. 1. in Principio creavit Deus caelum & terram, iuxta duos sensus litterales, duas concludit veritates, scilicet, quòd mundus inceperit, quasi Τὸ in principio, significet principium temporis, &, quod nihil ante mundum sit productum, quasi Τὸ in principio, idem sit quod, ante omnia” (ibid).

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Caiphas speaks by one sense, the Holy Spirit speaks through him by another: “It is better for us that one man might die for the people” (Jn 11.50) and nevertheless Saint John expresses and signifies by these words the double sense and meaning, namely of both Caiphas and of the Holy Spirit. Truly in this and in many other ways, one sense is joined with another as if subordinated to it34.

Here John’s narration of Caiphas prophecy recognizes (and legitimizes) how the twofold literal meaning creates the bond to God’s providence in history through prophetic speech. Thus when A Lapide allegorizes certain prophetic texts, they are already bound to God’s eternal providence in the double-literal sense. We can see the implications of a “double-literal” sense at work in A Lapide’s approach to the Eucharistic sacrifice through Malachi’s Old Testament prophecy about a coming universal mincha. As noted, A Lapide does not explicitly interpret Mal 1,11 in a “double-literal” way, but the elucidation of his commentary and his approach to the verse as a bona fide prophecy appears to admit a double-literal interpretation. God’s intention is at work directly in the literal sense of the text, as divine author. We now turn to how A Lapide uses this tactic to frame Malachi’s prophecy as the literal sense of a future sacrifice, in contradistinction to John Calvin’s purely typological/ allegorical interpretation of the same verse. IV. MALACHI 1,11: INTERPRETING THE UNIVERSAL MINCHA Cornelius a Lapide published his commentary on the Minor Prophets in 1625, so it is about 8 years removed from the above material on Leviticus, however his hermeneutical and theological approach to the mincha remains consistent. Like his exegesis of Leviticus 2, A Lapide’s commentary on Mal 1,11 is wide ranging and complex, and indeed at over 3700 words, is much longer than his remarks on the seminal “mincha” text in Leviticus 2. Here is the verse: For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation [mincha]: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts (DRB)35. 34. “Sic alio sensu Caiphas, alio Spiritus sanctus per os eius dixit: Expedit vobis; ut unus homo moriatur pro populo. Iohan. 11. 50. & tamen utrumque scilicet tam Caiphae, quàm Spiritus sancti, sensum & mentem enarrat & hisce verbis significat S. Iohannes. Verùm in hoc, uti & in aliis plerisque, unus sensus alteri aliqua ratione coniunctus & quasi subordinatus est” (CSS I, p. 33a). 35. “Ab ortu enim solis usque ad occasum, magnum est nomen meum in gentibus, et in omni loco sacrificatur: et offertur nomini meo oblatio munda, quia magnum est nomen meum in gentibus, dicit Dominus exercituum” (Vulg).

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It is noteworthy that from the beginning of his commentary, A Lapide establishes that the mincha of which Malachi speaks is, in short, sacrificed and offered through Christ and the Apostles: for the prophet speaks prophetically and prophecies about the future36.

A Lapide’s emphasis that Malachi is prophesying is quite intentional and here suggests the “higher-literal” sense. That is to say, A Lapide will concentrate his interpretation on a literal, not allegorical, sacrifice that is divinely willed. His approach follows a well-worn path, indeed the authors of the Didache as well as some of the most important Patristic theologians cite this verse in relation to their Eucharist as a sacrifice37. Due to this ancient provenance Mal 1,11 also becomes one of just a few biblical references that the Council of Trent uses in Session 22, Ch. 1 to undergird its theology of Eucharistic Sacrifice38. For having celebrated [at the Last Supper] the ancient Passover which the multitude of the children of Israel sacrificed in memory of their departure from Egypt, [Christ] instituted a new Passover, namely, Himself, to be immolated under visible signs … this is indeed that clean oblation which cannot be defiled by any unworthiness or malice on the part of those who offer it; which the Lord foretold by Malachias was to be great among the Gentiles, …39.

36. “Id est brevi per Christum et Apostolos sacrificabitur and offeretur: Propheta enim prophetice loquitur, et prophetat de futuris” (CSS XIV, p. 560b). 37. In his commentary on the Didache, Kurt NIEDERWIMMER provides a succinct footnote on the “significant role [Mal 1:10-14] has played in the early church’s scriptural citations”: JUSTIN, Dial. 28.5 (Goodspeed, 122); 41.2 (138); 116.3 (234); 117.1 (234) and 4 (235); IRENAEUS, Adv. haer. 4.17.5-6 (Sources chrétiennes, 100.592-95); TERTULLIAN, Adv. Marc. 3.22.6 (CCSL, 1.539); 4.1.8 (1.546); Adv. Iud. 5.4, 7 (2.1351, 1352); CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, Strom. 5.14, 136.2-3 (GCS, 2.418), etc. Cf. K.S. FRANK, Maleachi 1,10ff. in der frühen Väterdeutung: Ein Beitrag zu Opferterminologie und Opferverständnis in der alten Kirche, in Theologie und Philosophie 53 (1978) 70-78, pp. 70-72. The Didache quotation appears to be “the earliest Christian application of the saying in Malachi” (p. 71). (K. NIEDERWIMMER, The Didache: A Commentary, trans. L.M. MALONEY [Hermeneia], Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, p. 199, n. 37). See also Aaron MILAVEC’s very large Didache study (The Didache: Faith, Hope, & Life of the Earliest Christian Communities, 50-70 C.E., New York, The Newman Press, 2003). In his section “The Meaning of Malachi 1:11” (ibid., pp. 554-564), Milavec states that the earliest Christian citations of Malachi’s prophecy are found in communities that were not connected to each other (i.e. those of the Didache, Justin Martyr & Irenaeus of Lyons), placing the use of this prophecy in the earliest oral tradition of Christianity (p. 560). 38. Also Heb 7,11 (Order of Melchizedek); Heb 7,24 (Christ’s priesthood does not end with his death); Ps 109,4 (A priest forever); Exod 13 (Passover); Col 1,13 (Delivered from darkness); 1 Cor 10,21 (Table of demons). 39. Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, Session 22, Ch 1, trans. H.J. SCHROEDER, Rockford, IL, Tan Books and Publishers, 1978 (first printing B. Herder, 1941), p. 145. The 13th Session of Trent concerns the Eucharist in general; the 22nd Session specifically addresses the Mass as a sacrifice.

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Because A Lapide is a continuous and intentional apologist for the Council of Trent, each time the Council cites Scripture he will make substantial comments about that verse(s); correlating the biblical citations of Trent with his own commentary. But he does not always reference Trent directly, this is the case with Mal 1,11, where we find a clear biblical and theological defense of the Eucharist as a sacrifice40. A Lapide divides the verse into two parts, reserving the vast majority of commentary for the second half, a prophecy about a forthcoming mincha sacrifice that all peoples will offer in every place: and in every place there is sacrifice [muqtar], and there is offered to my name a clean oblation [mincha]: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts (DRB, Mal 1,11b).

This part of Malachi’s prophecy, in its way, is also mysterious and difficult, no little theological debate concerns the interpretation of two Hebrew words, the aforementioned mincha and its relation to muqtar (sacrifice). The core of the discussion turns on the definition of muqtar (see below). As A Lapide unpacks the controversy, he gives a lengthy literal interpretation of Malachi’s mincha prophecy which bridges the mincha of Leviticus 2 to the Christian Eucharist. His primary objective is to establish how the universal “clean oblation” (mincha) is indeed a prophecy of the Eucharistic sacrifice. In his opening comments A Lapide gives alternative interpretations of the verse with his own responses or counters41. A Lapide dismisses three questionable interpretations, one after the next, immediately after stating them. The first dubious interpretation is that the mincha sacrifice “in every place” means Jewish diaspora offerings throughout the world42. A Lapide argues that this is incorrect because the prophecy does not indicate a specifically Jewish sacrifice, rather a universal one. The second adversary is Hugo [presumably Grotius43], who argues that foreign 40. It is also perhaps worth noting that the Council does not connect Leviticus 2, or the idea of the Jewish mincha in itself, to its theology of the Eucharist as a sacrifice. 41. The basic architecture of the section is scholastic and bears a strong resemblance to a discussion topic in Aquinas’ Summa, although it is not as structured in terms of Objection/ Responses. Sometimes A Lapide will respond immediately, other times he lays out a series of possibilities and will then offer his responses. 42. This interpretation was articulated in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho. “In discussing Mal 1,11, Justin says that for the Jews of his day this text meant that the prayers (euchai) of the Jews of the Diaspora were considered by God to be sacrifices (thysiai). PG 6, 745; referenced in J. SWETNAM, Malachi 1,11: An Interpretation, in Catholic Biblical Quarterly 31 (1969) 200-209, p. 205. 43. I could not connect Grotius’ comments in Annotationes in Vetus Testamentum (Malachi 1,11b) with A Lapide’s reference here. Although Hugo’s comments do connect

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nations will recognize the temple in Jerusalem. A Lapide points to Hugo’s alteration (invertit) of “in every place” (in omni loco) into “out of every place” (ex omni loco), which incorrectly shifts the meaning of the verse toward Jerusalem rather than away from it. The third interpretation posits the possibility of some other pre-Christian sacrifice to the true God, or some sacrifice contemporaneous with Malachi’s time44. A Lapide does not reject this idea outright. However, he points out that few if any pre-Christian nations have recognized (much less sacrificed to) an omnipotent God of all creation. So the notion is fairly implausible. The fourth interpretation requires a more elaborate response. This is to John Calvin, A Lapide’s main theological adversary and upon whom we now turn our focus45. As noted, the debate concerns Calvin’s rendering of the Hebrew muqtar when explaining the universal mincha. Muqtar is a vexing hophal participle from the Hebrew root qatar, which can be translated in two ways, either as a noun (“incense”) or verbal passive participle (“be made to smoke as a sacrifice”)46. Theologically, to the first objection regarding the Chaldean translation: “Supplevit hunc defectum hoc loco etiam Chaldaeus. Caetera quoque sic vertas optime: in omni loco offeretur nomini meo quasi suffitus et μαναὰ pura. Quasi suffitus sunt piae preces, Apocalyps 5.8. μαναὰ (libum ex simila) vero sunt oblationes fidelium, ex quibus et Eucharistia fiebat, et alebantur pauperes” (Halae, 1776, Tomus II, p. 553). 44. A Lapide in no way believes that the sacrifice of which Malachi speaks is contemporaneous with the prophet’s own time. In terms of modern criticism Swetnam points out that “[t]he stumbling block to any [contemporaneous] metaphorical interpretation (which historical-critics have generally pursued) is Malachi’s Deuteronomistic theology of temple cult along with the immediate polemic against Edom and “the ideal of a return to the days of old” in cult (3,4). The polemic against Edom [1,2-5] is in function of Yahweh’s particular love for Israel (1,2). It would seem at the least anomalous to introduce a section on the universal recognition of Yahweh by the nations with a strong attack against one of Israel’s nearest neighbors” (SWETNAM, Malachi 1,11 [n. 43], p. 204). 45. In dealing with his adversaries I have found through study of A Lapide’s use of Erasmus that A Lapide quotes his adversaries accurately and avoids polemics when possible (although he will flare up from time to time). See B.D. FISCHER, The Impact of Erasmus on the 1614 Pauline Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide, S.J., in A. DUPONT – W. FRANÇOIS – A. ROBIGLIO –V. SOEN (eds.), Authority Revisited: Towards Thomas More and Erasmus in 1516 (Lectio Series: Studies in the Transmission of Texts and Ideas), Turnhout, Brepols, forthcoming. 46. From Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon 6999: Original Word: ‫ק ַטר‬.ָ Transliteration: qatar. Phonetic Spelling: (kaw-tar’). Part of Speech: verb … (Hophal) to be made to smoke; noun masculine: incense; noun feminine: incense-altar. Definition: a primitive root (identical with through the idea of fumigation in a close place and perhaps thus driving out the occupants); to smoke, i.e. turn into fragrance by fire (especially as an act of worship): – burn (incense, sacrifice) (upon), (altar for) incense, kindle, offer (incense, a sacrifice) (J. STRONG, New Strong’s Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Hebrew Bible, Nashville, TN, Thomas Nelson, 1995, p. 125). Also: Brown-Driver-Briggs: [‫…]ק ַטר‬ ָ Hoph`al be made to smoke as a sacrifice: … Participle ‫ ֻמ ְק ָטר‬Malachi 1:11 (Ew Ke al [ Ges§ 121b] … (F. BROWN – S.R. DRIVER – C.A. BRIGGS, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English

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the term is important to clarify because the muqtar could refer to that crucial “real change” principle of sacrifice by which mincha offering is destroyed (in this case by burning), or it could be merely a spiritual idea. A Lapide spends a good deal of thought on Malachi’s use of muqtar and how it relates to the mincha as a real sacrifice. The strength of Calvin’s argument is found in the fact that he is also working directly from Hebrew, and arguing that muqtar is the “incense” of faith, hope, charity, prayer, invocation and praise. Moreover the Prophet, by “mnchh”, meneche [sic], “offering”, and by “incense” [muqtar], means the worship of God; and this mode of speaking is common in the Scriptures, for the Prophets who were under the law accommodated their expressions to the comprehension of the people … It then follows that this mode of speaking ought to be so taken, that we may understand the analogy between the legal rites, and the spiritual manner of worshipping God now prescribed in the gospel. Though then the words of the Prophet are metaphorical, yet their meaning is plain enough – that God will be worshipped and adored everywhere47.

Calvin’s comment leaves the sacrificial sense of muqtar unacknowledged. Rather than rendering muqtar as “sacrifice” or more accurately “burning smoke” from the mincha sacrifice, he shows muqtar as a noun, “incense”, and places it alongside mincha. It is interesting to note that Calvin’s comment only references the Hebrew of mincha, and not muqtar. Calvin continues: And thus it appears how absurd are the Papists, when they hence infer that God cannot be worshipped without some kind of sacrifice; and on this ground they defend the impiety of their mass, as though it were the sacrifice of which the Prophet speaks. But nothing can be more foolish and puerile; for the Prophet, as we have said, adopts a mode of speaking common in Scripture. And were we to allow offering and incense to be taken here literally, how could, mnchh, meneche [sic], offering, be the body and blood of Christ? “Oh!” they say, “it is a sacrifice made of bread, and wine was added. Oh! Christ has thus commanded”. But where has he said “sacrifice?”48.

Calvin’s provocative stance cries out to the Jesuit for a robust defense. In his opening rebuttal, A Lapide first aligns Calvin’s rendering of “incense” with similar sentiments from French Hebrew scholars Clarius

Lexicon, Peabody, MA, Hendrickson, 142012 (original edition Houghton, Mifflin and Co, Boston, 1906), p. 883a. 47. J. CALVIN, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets. Vol. 5: Zechariah and Malachi, trans. J. OWEN, Edinburgh, The Calvin Translation Society, 1849. p. 501. 48. Ibid., p. 502.

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[Isidoro Chiari (1495-1555)]49 and Vatablus [François Vatable (†1547)]50. The interpretation of the three scholars, A Lapide explains, is rooted in an out of context understanding of Tertullian’s Contra Judaeos lib. V51. A Lapide makes the case that in context of the rest of his writings (e.g. Contra Marcion XXII, lib. III52) Tertullian “accepts the sacrifice of the Eucharist” together with the prayers and hymns to God which are made at the Eucharistic sacrifice. In other words, the sacrifice itself is called “prayer”. Just as other Church Fathers repeatedly call it “euken”, that is, a prayer, a form of praying, a liturgy; indeed for that reason [the Eucharistic sacrifice] is called “Eucharistia”, that is the action of giving thanks53.

Tertullian’s interpretation of the Eucharist contains two levels of meaning in which the “sacrifice” is called “thanksgiving”; in A Lapide’s interpretation of muqtar, there are also two-levels at work which he attributes to metalepses. That is, when translated as a noun, muqtar is a 49. Chiari was a Benedictine Abbot and Bishop of Foligno, Italy. He was one of three Benedictine Abbots to attend the opening of the Council of Trent and worked toward reconciliation of Lutherans and Catholics. He published an annotated Bible in 1542. 50. As noted above, A Lapide frequently references Vatablus’ Bible translation, although he disputes it here. Vatablus was also likely Calvin’s first Hebrew teacher in Paris (1531-33), so there is a clear line of influence (Calvin, John, in D.K. MCKIM [ed.], Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters, Downers Grove, IL, InterVarsity Press, 2007, 287-294, p. 290). 51. “[5] For that it is not by earthly sacrifices, but by spiritual, that offering is to be made to God, we thus read, as it is written, ‘An heart contribulate and humbled is a victim for God’; and elsewhere, ‘sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise, and render to the Highest thy vows’. Thus, accordingly, the spiritual ‘sacrifices of praise’ are pointed to, and ‘an heart contribulate’ is demonstrated an acceptable sacrifice to God. [6] And thus, as carnal sacrifices are understood to be reprobated – of which Isaiah withal speaks, saying, ‘To what end is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? saith the Lord’ – so spiritual sacrifices are predicted as accepted, as the prophets announce”. Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian. I. Apologetic; II. Anti-Marcion; III. Ethical, ed. A.C. C OXE et al., trans. S. THELWALL (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 3), Buffalo, NY, The Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1885-96. Critical edition: CCSL, 1.539; 4.1.8 (1.546); Adv. Iud. 5.4, 7 (2.1351, 1352). 52. [6] “[S]o that with this agrees also the prophecy of Malachi: ‘I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord; neither will I accept your offerings: for from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place sacrifice shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering’ – such as the ascription of glory, and blessing, and praise, and hymns. [7] Now, inasmuch as all these things are also found amongst you, and the sign upon the forehead, and the sacraments of the church, and the offerings of the pure sacrifice, you ought now to burst forth, and declare that the Spirit of the Creator prophesied of your Christ” (ibid.; TERTULLIAN Adv. Marc. 3.22.6-7). 53. “sicut et alii Patres subinde eam vocant εὐχὴν, id est orationem, precationem sacram, liturgiam; imo idcirco vocatur Eucharistia, id est gratiarum actio” (CSS, XIV, p. 561a).

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figurative reference to a specific element of the mincha, the incense, which can be seen tropologically as prayer and works of charity. However, when translated as a participle, muqtar functions metonymically as part of the literal meaning which designates burning smoke from a literal sacrifice54. This is an extremely important distinction because the literal sense of muqtar indicates the principle of real change (namely fire) that distinguishes a sacrifice from an offering. A Lapide and Calvin both anchor their renderings in the original language. However, as the Hebrew word comes into Latin, the translation can continue to have literal connection (“sacrifice”), or be translated to a sense that is more easily spiritualized (“incense”). As noted above, A Lapide considers the literal sense the firmest ground on which to build an interpretation, so it is a matter of which rendering of the Hebrew is most faithful to the literal, sacrificial sense of the text. Eventually A Lapide will offer an interpretation that accepts both translations, but not before a lengthy discussion. A Lapide then offers a defense of his subtle point through a series of six proofs that the Malachi’s prophecy of a universal “pure oblation” must be viewed as a real sacrifice, and furthermore, can only be the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist. These six proofs are an elaborate and complex response to Calvin’s interpretation, in fact A Lapide sets Calvin aside for the first four points only to circle back to him in the section’s closing remarks55. I will briefly set the proofs forth, and then offer some reflection on how they connect to his overall approach not only to sacrifice, but to the literal sense of the text. In the first proof, A Lapide returns to his most basic claim: for reasons of divine revelation the mincha grain offering is best seen as a figure of Christian sacrifice. Indeed, it is precisely because the mincha is a sacrificial type, rather than something purely spiritual, that it is most powerfully fulfilled in the Eucharistic anti-type. A Lapide asserts that sacrifice is a higher form of worship than mere prayer, so what was considered a grain sacrifice by the Jews would not be “downgraded” into 54. In his analysis of the literal sense A Lapide will frequently use technical grammatical designations developed by Quintilian (here “metalepses”). These technical terms are another mark of the humanist movement and specific tactics of Jesuit interpretation. See in this regard the section “Spain, the Jesuit Order, and the Internationalization of the Order” in the essay B.D. FISCHER – W. FRANÇOIS – A. GERACE – L. MURRAY, “The “Golden Age” of Catholic Biblical Scholarship (1550-1650) and Its Relation to Biblical Humanism, in J. MARIUS – J. LANGE VAN RAVENSWAAY – H.J. SELDERHUIS (eds.), Renaissance und Bibelhumanismus (Refo500 Academic Studies), Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht – in print. Also see my aforementioned article on Erasmus’ impact on A Lapide. 55. This kind of inclusio is typical of A Lapide’s prolix style. There is much more in the commentary and I only present a sample here for purposes of illustrating how he confronts a theological adversary.

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a simple oblation of prayer at the Christian Eucharist. He goes on to reflect that the mincha was part of the daily morning and evening sacrifices (sacrificium juge) which kept the Jewish community “yoked” to God. The elements were a lamb holocaust (Christ type) upon which the mincha grain was sprinkled and conjoined (Eucharist type). These two became one sacrifice, although the mincha could be offered independently. The next two proofs emphasize the connection between priesthood and sacrifice. Malachi’s prophecy holds that the universal mincha will remain purest and most holy (munda) despite the unworthiness of the ministers, and so in Catholic theology an unworthy priest can offer valid Eucharist56. Thirdly, priest, altar and victim are correlative for a sacrifice. One cannot be without the other two. A Lapide is adamant about this point, not just in Malachi, but in other places (e.g. Heb 13; 1 Cor 26). Ergo, if Malachi is prophesying to Jewish priests, then he must be speaking about a sacrifice that priests will make upon an altar. In his fourth proof A Lapide returns to the idea that the muqtar is directly connected to a burnt sacrifice and secondarily to the symbol of prayer and good works. He uses the secondary symbol to revisit the tropological themes of the mincha preparation from Leviticus 2, i.e. pure flour, cooked in an oven and/or sprinkled on a holocaust. While acknowledging that the mincha preparations can be seen tropologically as Christian prayer, A Lapide begins to use this secondary, tropological sense as leverage against Calvin’s primary (indeed univocal) interpretation of mincha as Christian prayer alone, again highlighting the “burning” sacrificial meaning of muqtar as a specific designation for literal sacrifice, to which the Jesuit will return shortly. This section also contains an important theological correlation between the immolation and change of the wheat sacrifice and the transubstantiation and consumption of the Eucharist57. A Lapide’s fifth proof is simple, but quite strong. Since Malachi must be referring to a real sacrifice, the Eucharist is currently the only sacrifice offered in every place and nation throughout the world. He follows this with his sixth and final proof, a “doctrinal catena” of traditional teaching on the Eucharist as a sacrifice. The catena is chronological, beginning 56. St. Augustine first gave full expression to this theology during the Donatist controversy over infant Baptism. The theological designation is that the seven sacraments, beginning with baptism, have an effect on the baptized ex opere operato (“by the work, worked”), regardless of the subjective spiritual condition of the priest who confers them. 57. Although A Lapide never enters the “destruction theory” debates that were raging in Catholic theological circles at this time, his position on exactly when the “destruction” of the Eucharist takes place seems in accord with his Jesuit confrere Robert Bellarmine (see F. CLARK’s chapter “The Destruction Theories of the Theologians”, in Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation [n. 10], pp. 435-468 esp. 452-454).

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with the Council of Trent’s use of Mal 1,11 and going back to John of Damascus58. After these proofs, A Lapide reiterates Calvin’s claim that the muqtar is the incense of the sacrifice, which he (Calvin) interprets as prayers of the faithful, and follows with his own response: through metalepses the hophal participle muqtar refers to the sacrificial smoke of a burning victim rising to God, (wryly adding “which every Hebrew dictionary teaches”). However, A Lapide now expands the Hebrew analysis by looking at the root verb of muqtar, which is catar, and its strong context within the sacrificial cult59. A Lapide acknowledges that although both senses of the word are valid, and that on one level muqtar (translated as a noun) can mean what Calvin says it means, “incense”, the muqtar realizes its most profound meaning in “burning smoke”, and relates metonymically toward a literal mincha sacrifice within a prophecy about the Eucharistic sacrifice. Calvin’s interpretation only accounts for the tropological, symbolic illustration of Christian moral life; it is not the strongest literal sense of the Hebrew. A Lapide’s “double-literal” interpretation of the Hebrew prophecy (with the understanding that the secondary literal sense of muqtar becomes tropological in Latin translation) allows for multivalence, whereas Calvin’s tropological interpretation is univocal and purely symbolic. CONCLUSION This essay, fundamentally, concerns itself with Cornelius a Lapide’s approach to the Old Testament. In particular the seventeenth-century Jesuit’s defense of the Eucharist as a sacrifice in continuity with the Jewish Mincha, and the tactics that he uses to root his interpretation in the literal sense of the Old Testament texts Leviticus 2 and Mal 1,11. In our study we have examined these two passages and the interpretive principles that undergird them, followed by A Lapide’s commentary on the verses. 58. CSS XIV, p. 562a. 59. Swetnam’s modern historical study would appear to agree: “Muqṭār can easily be understood as a general term for that which is sacrificed, since verbs formed from qṭr [catar] indicate the rising of the smoke of sacrifice. A translation based on this analysis would render muqṭār as ‘burnt sacrifice’ and [subsequent word] muggāš as ‘is offered’. The phrase ûmincḥâ tehôrâ is best taken as a phrase emphatically repeating what immediately precedes, the introductory waw serving as an intensifying conjunction. Not only is there sacrifice outside of Jerusalem, but the oblation made is really pure, in contrast to the oblations made in Jerusalem, which are defective (cf. the use of minḥâ in Mal 1.10 and in Mal 1.13). Thus the use of sacrificial terminology in Mal 1.11, when analyzed in its context, is seen to be intelligible only with reference to the sacrificial cult of the temple” (SWETNAM, Malachi 1,11 [n. 43], p. 201).

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Our findings allow us to conclude that A Lapide sees the literal sense of the quadriga as the most profound, and any spiritual sense of the text must be “born forth” from the literal. Thus, when he interprets the Jewish mincha as a sacrifice he does so first in a literal manner (i.e. according to the intention of the author). The sacrificial principle of change is applied to the wheat sacrifice which will lead to his eventual defense of the Eucharist of Jesus as a divinely willed literal sacrifice. In his comments on Leviticus 2, we also see A Lapide’s approach to the literal sense at work through his use of ancient pagan wheat sacrifices as cross-cultural “prooftexts” that give supplemental evidence for natural revelation. A Lapide moves into comment on the spiritual senses of the text (allegorical and tropological) only after he has articulated the literal. However, when he interprets prophetic speech, he expands the notion of the literal sense into a “double-literal” understanding which takes into account God as divine author. Thus direct prophecies (such as Mal 1,11) can be interpreted as literal, although supra-historical. The double-literal sense creates a “higher” literal meaning that opens the door to divinely revealed continuity between the Testaments. It also gives A Lapide space to avoid the pitfall of a strictly univocal, historical meaning. Although our findings also allow us to conclude that A Lapide’s instincts for historical accuracy are very good vis-à-vis the TDOT and other modern historical critical articles, his primary motive is to create said space for multivalent interpretations of the text while at the same time preserving the literal foundation. A Lapide’s construal of Malachi’s “universal mincha” prophecy as a real sacrifice is in accord with the higher literal sense. When he addresses John Calvin’s interpretation of the prophecy as a derivative, tropological meaning, A Lapide uses the multivalence of the Hebrew text to argue that, although Calvin’s interpretation is correct in a spiritual sense, the literal and sacrificial sense is what both God and the inspired author really intend. This conflation of the intention of the inspired author (literal sense), with the intention of God in prophetic speech (double-literal, or higher literal sense) allows Cornelius A Lapide to envision a continuous sacrificial union between history and the eternal God. Therefore since the figurative and Jewish mincha was properly called a sacrifice, it follows much more that the true and Christian mincha, namely the Eucharist, is a true and proper sacrifice60.

60. “Cum ergo ‘mincha’ typicum et judaicum fuerit proprie dictum sacrificium, sequitur multo magis ‘mincha’ verum et christianum, puta Eucharisticum, esse verum et proprium sacrificium” (CSS XIV, p. 561a).

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The Eucharist of Jesus becomes the culmination of the mincha sacrifice described in Leviticus 2, taken a step further and revisioned through the prophecy of Malachi as a sacrifice offered unto eternity for all nations and peoples. Assumption Abbey 418 3rd Ave W. Richardton, ND 58652 USA [email protected]

Benedict D. FISCHER, OSB

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While there is substantial agreement between Catholics and many other traditions issuing from the Reformation on the real, substantial, and personal presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the problem of eucharistic sacrifice remains potentially church-dividing. The following is a list of issues and questions that arise when one starts to scratch below the surface of the problem: 1. Whether the Eucharist is propitiatory sacrifice as well as sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; 2. Whether Christ or we or both offer this sacrifice of the Eucharist; 3. Whether Christ or we or both are offered in the eucharistic offering1; 4. Whether Christ and we are offered through the human ministry called the priesthood; 5. Whether the propitiatory or expiatory dimension of sacrifice perpetuates an archaic, and possibly pathological, valorization of divinelysanctioned violence; 6. Whether sacrifice, offering, priest, victim, propitiation, satisfaction etc., are to be understood analogously when applied to the church rather than univocally; 7. Whether a retreat from sacrificial language constitutes reductionism2; 8. Whether sacrifice is to be understood in a spiritualized or interiorized sense as a movement from a material immolation toward a more spiritual prayer form for which immolation is unnecessary; 9. Whether sacrifice become ethical living3; 10. Whether eucharistic sacrifice constitutes synergism, the same difficulty that occurs between Catholics and Reformed Christians with respect to the relationship between nature and grace, humanity’s role and God’s role in salvation, Mary and merit, Christ and the Church

1. C. KIESLING, Roman Catholic Doctrine and Reformed Theology of the Eucharist as Sacrifice, in Journal of Ecumenical Studies 15 (1978) 416-426, p. 419. 2. JOHN PAUL II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 17 April 2003, § 10. 3. R. DALY, The Origins of the Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice, Philadelphia, PA, Fortress, 1978, p. 7; L.-M. CHAUVET, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 1995, p. 307.

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in reconciliation, and the function of the humanity of Christ. Does synergism obscure God’s saving work in Christ4? Whether a tension or contradiction exists between the sufficiency of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice of the Cross and the Eucharist as a true propitiatory sacrifice in addition to being a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; Whether the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ are offered to the Father or the historical events of the passion and resurrection5; Whether what is offered are the antitypes, that is, the celebration, in sacramental form, of redemption6; Whether the Mass adds to Calvary and whether the sacrificial worth of two Masses is just double the sacrificial worth of one Mass.

Clearly, the issue of eucharistic sacrifice touches a number of doctrines and theological areas: the liturgy and its purpose, use of symbols, and dynamic; the relationship between eucharistic presence and eucharistic sacrifice; the redemption achieved by Christ and the application of its fruit to Christians; the relationship between Eucharist and ethics; the use of analogical versus equivocal language with respect to sacrament and history; the relationship between propitiation and praise and thanksgiving; the question of agency in the Eucharist, whether the agent is Christ or us or both and if so, how we are related. In what follows, I will offer a preliminary survey of what is meant by eucharistic sacrifice, situate the immediate context of the ecumenical discussion in the theology of the Council of Trent and the thought of Martin Luther, and survey the ecumenical lecture to identify the progress that has been made in resolving differences through ecumenical dialogue. Finally, I will offer my own constructive proposal for how to think about the relationship between the Cross and the Eucharist. While the list of questions that can be raised with respect to eucharistic sacrifice is long, the challenge is not to address the list item by item, but to offer an over-arching narrative within which they can find a home.

4. G.C. BERKOUWER, The Sacraments, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1969, pp. 268277. 5. E. MAZZA, The Eucharistic Prayers of the Roman Rite, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 1986, pp. 178-179. 6. See eucharistic Prayer IV: “The bread and wine, now the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, are offered to the Father”.

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I. WHAT IS MEANT BY “SACRIFICE”? Perhaps a preliminary problem in addressing the topic of eucharistic sacrifice is the identification of what we mean by sacrifice and what metaphorical complex of associations is appropriate when we associate it with both Christ’s act and the Eucharist. Louis-Marie Chauvet asserts, “there is no doubt that the word ‘sacrifice’ is one of the most treacherous in the Christian vocabulary”7. The association between the Eucharist and sacrifice is ancient. References to the sacrificial action of the presiding priest and of the bread and wine as sacrificial offerings occur in the Apostolic Tradition, attributed to Hippolytus. Questions of Christian sacramental sacrifice easily become embroiled in how Christian notions of sacrifice relate to Jewish Temple sacrifice8. Robert Daly’s work addresses what he calls a spiritualization of sacrificial meaning, which emphasizes “the true meaning of sacrifice, that is, the inner, spiritual, or ethical significance of the cult over against the merely material or merely external understanding of it”9. René Girard has written of sacrifice in terms of a scapegoat mechanism. Louis-Marie Chauvet, building on Girard’s work, questions whether the category is necessary or appropriate for describing the meaning of Jesus’ life and death. Chauvet prefers to refer to Jesus’ self-renunciation as anti-sacrifice, a third term between Girard’s dichotomy of sacrifice and non-sacrifice10. The theology of sacrifice that was disputed at the time of the Reformation and remains the subject of ecumenical discussion is a rather reified notion of sacrifice, an act in which the destruction or death of a victim is required and that victim is acted upon and offered. Although it is not necessary to associate the notion of sacrifice with an Anselmian theology of atonement, such an association is often made with the result that Christ’s sacrifice is sometimes interpreted as the appeasement of a wrathful and jealous God who demands the death of a Son to atone for human sin in divinely-sanctioned violence. Reformation-era disagreements on propitiatory sacrifice, a plurality of sacrifices, the notion of a sacrificial priesthood, private masses, frequency of communion, and prayer for the dead were all tied to the mediaeval practices of offering a reified “sacrifice of the Mass” for the dead or 7. CHAUVET, Symbol and Sacrament (n. 3), p. 315. 8. See P. DUFF, The Sacrificial Character of Earliest Christianity: A Response to Robert J. Daly’s ‘Is Christianity Sacrificial or Anti-Sacrificial’, in Religion 27 (1997) 245-248, and B. CHILTON, Sacrificial Mimesis, in Religion 27 (1997) 225-230. 9. DALY, The Origins of the Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice (n. 3), p. 7. 10. CHAUVET, Symbol and Sacrament (n. 3), pp. 303-307.

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other intentions, the infrequency of lay communion, the focus on the mediating/consecratory power of the priest11. In the face of conflicting theories and ecumenical impasses, it may be tempting to forgo the category all together, to spiritualize it, or convert it into a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. That risks wresting both the Eucharist and the sacrifice associated with it from its social context. For example, as St. Ignatius of Antioch, who desired “to be poured out as a libation and to be made purest wheat by the teeth of the wild beasts” (Rom. 4), reminds us, the Eucharist was counter-cultural in the Roman pagan world and associated with martyrdom. The Eucharist is just as counter-cultural today. II. THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT: THE COUNCIL OF TRENT A necessary starting point for assessing ecumenical agreement on the sacrificial character of the Eucharist is a hermeneutical exploration of the doctrine and text of the Council of Trent (1545-1563). Only on the basis of a secure grasp of the meaning presented by Trent can discussion build an ecumenical understanding. Although the statement of the Council of Trent is a restatement and justification of the traditional doctrine of the Church, the particular emphasis and themes were dictated by the exigencies of this historical situation, namely, those points of doctrine denied by the Reformers. It adopted an essentially defensive posture. Today ecumenical dialogue, a new historical context, and recent biblical and patristic studies contribute opportunities for better mutual understanding between ecumenical partners. In Chapter 1 of the Decree on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Council emphasizes the continuing priesthood of Christ and the fact that this priesthood is enacted in the Mass. The Eucharist is interpreted as the representation, the memorial, and the application of the benefits of the cross-sacrifice to the remission of sin. In the final paragraph, the Council compares the Mass to the Passover meal which included the sacrificial lamb. Chapter 2 deduces the propitiatory value of the eucharistic sacrifice from the unity of the Mass with the cross-sacrifice. The priest, Christ, is also the victim which is offered. Because the form of the sacrifice is distinct from the sacrifice of Calvary, the Mass is not a new sacrifice, but is rather the same sacrifice as that of Calvary offered in 11. J.M. PIERCE, The Eucharist as Sacrifice: Some Contemporary Roman Catholic Reflections, in Worship 69 (1995) 394-405, p. 402.

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a new form, i.e., in an unbloody manner. The text emphasizes that the sacrifice of the Mass in no way detracts from the sacrifice of the Cross. The most authoritative texts of the Council include Canons 1, 3, and 4. Canon 1 (DS 1751) condemns the opinion that the Mass is not a true and proper sacrifice offered to God or that the sacrifice consists merely in the fact that Christ is given to eat. Canon 3 (DS 1753) condemns the opinion that the sacrifice of the Mass is merely an offering of praise and thanksgiving, or a simple memorial and not propitiatory, or that it benefits only communicants, or that it should not be offered for the living and the dead, for sin, punishments, satisfaction, and other necessities. Canon 4 (DS 1754) condemns the opinion that the sacrifice of the Mass constitutes a blasphemy to the sacrifice of Christ or detracts from that sacrifice. The doctrine of the Council of Trent is strongly grounded in the theology of Thomas Aquinas. In the Summa Theologiae III, q. 83 a. 1, in answer to the question whether Christ is immolated in the sacrament, Thomas offers affirmative reply: First, because as Augustine says … the images of things are called by the names of those things of which they are the images … Now the celebration of this sacrament … is a kind of representative image of Christ’s passion, which is His true immolation; and, for this reason, the celebration of this sacrament is called the immolation of Christ. Hence Ambrose in his commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews says, “In Christ a sacrifice was offered but once, of profit to salvation forever. What then do we do? Do we not offer every day? Yes, but by making a memorial of His death”. Secondly, as regards the effect of Christ’s passion, since through this sacrament we are made partakers of the fruits of the Lord’s passion.

Here, then, lie the roots of Trent’s theology of eucharistic sacrifice as a representation of Christ’s passion in which the fruits of that passion are communicated through its representation12. Catholics understand memorial (anamnesis) and the invocation of the Spirit (epiklesis) in a strong sense. The Church not only calls to mind the Passion and resurrection of Christ Jesus in the Eucharist, but also presents to the Father the offering of his Son which reconciles us with him. The once-for-all sacrifice of the Son becomes sacramentally present, that is, in a certain way is made present and real. This is not a repetition of the sacrifice of Christ, but a re-presentation of it by means of anamnesis through which the Church joins itself to Christ’s sacrifice in his self-offering to the Father to intercede for all of humanity.

12. DS 1635-1661.

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It was not fully grasped at the time that the sacrifice of the Mass precisely as sacrament makes present the unique sacrifice of Christ on the Cross without repeating that sacrifice13. Nor did Trent elucidate how the mystery of the Cross and the Eucharist are to be understood without contradiction. Today, a stronger connection between sacrifice and sacrament along with the retrieval of the liturgical notion of anamnesis in eucharistic doctrine and practice make it possible to express together the faithful conviction of both “the uniqueness and the full sufficiency of the atoning event in Jesus Christ”14. Therefore, canon 4 of the Council of Trent “is essentially not applicable today” to Lutheran eucharistic theology, and the “sharp criticism of the Roman mass in the Smalcald Articles and the Heidelberg Catechism” cannot be said to apply to the actual teaching of the Roman church15. III. MARTIN LUTHER Luther was convinced that one of the most substantial differences between his teaching and that of the Catholic Church was the question of the sacrificial character of the Mass. From very early on, Luther emphasized the Eucharist as a sacrifice of praise and tried to eliminate every trace of the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice of the Church. According to a theory stemming from Duns Scotus, the practice of private masses implied that every celebrated Mass had a spiritual value that could be applied to someone according to the intention of the person who paid for the Mass. Thus, Lutherans associated notions of eucharistic sacrifice with the late medieval Church’s secular power and financial enrichment16. Luther also considered that the notion of Eucharist as sacrifice violated what he saw as the essential character of the Mass, which was first of all God’s own service, a beneficium received rather

13. Sacrosanctum Concilium 5. 14. K. LEHMANN – W. PANNENBERG (eds.), The Condemnations of the Reformation Era: Do They Still Divide?, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 1990, p. 85. 15. Ibid.; see DS 1754: “If anyone says that after the consecration is completed, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are not in the admirable sacrament of the Eucharist, but are there only in usu, while being taken and not before and not after, and that the hosts or consecrated particles which are reserved or which remain after communion, the true body of the Lord does not remain, let him be anathema” (canon 4). 16. M.J. MATTOX, Offered and Received: Lutheran Theology and Practice of the Eucharist, in Lutheran Forum 37/2 (2003) 33-44, p. 34.

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than a sacrificium offered17. Last but not least, Luther found the logical conclusion of the theology of eucharistic sacrifice was that the Eucharist is a bloodless repetition of the Lord’s sacrifice. Luther insisted that in the Lord’s Supper Christ gives himself to those who receive him, and that, as a gift, Christ could only be received properly in faith and not offered. Luther thought that understanding the Eucharist as sacrifice would mean that it is a good work that we perform and offer to God. This would transform what was a most precious gift into a good work. In the course of the reform, the order of the Mass was changed so that it was no longer celebrated as a sacrifice. Nor could it be understood as a good work. Nevertheless, Luther considered the Mass to be a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise insofar as in giving thanks a person acknowledges that he or she is in need of the gift and that his or her situation will only change by receiving the gift. Consequently, true receiving in faith contains an active dimension not to be underestimated. For Catholics, the teaching of Trent remains normative. Its teaching has been received by subsequent church teaching. For example, Pius XII in his encyclical letter Mediator Dei (1947) emphasized the fact that the eucharistic species are signs and symbols of Christ’s death and that the eucharistic sacrifice is in the order of signs. Consequently, what is repeated is not the sacrifice of the Cross, but the commemorative representation, the sacrament of Christ’s sacrifice. Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council (1961-1965) states that the eucharistic sacrifice perpetuates the sacrifice of the Cross until Christ comes again (SC 47). Lumen Gentium 3 reiterates the same idea. Paul VI in his encyclical Mysterium Fidei (1965) states: “by means of the eucharistic mystery, the sacrifice of the cross, achieved once on Calvary, is marvelously symbolized, continually recalled to the memory, and its saving virtue is applied to the remission of sins which are daily committed by us”. Finally the prayers of the eucharistic liturgy in the Catholic Church, particularly those that follow the consecration clearly indicate the church’s conviction that it is offering a sacrifice to God.

17. For discussion of the Eucharist in ecumenical theology see G. WAINWRIGHT, Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine and Life, New York, Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 272ff.; R. SAARINEN, Faith and Holiness: Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue 1959-1994, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997, pp. 110ff.

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IV. ECUMENICAL AGREEMENTS Ecumenical dialogue has achieved a fair amount of consensus regarding eucharistic sacrifice as is evident in the following points of agreement: 1.

2.

3. 4.

5.

“In the Lord’s Supper Christ is present as the Crucified who died for our sins and who rose again for our justification, as the once-forall sacrifice for the sins of the world who gives himself to the faithful”18. “The celebration of the Eucharist is the church’s sacrifice of praise and self-offering or oblation”19, for “By him, with him, and in him who is our great High Priest and Intercessor we offer to the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit, our praise, thanksgiving and intercession. With contrite hearts we offer ourselves as a living and holy sacrifice, a sacrifice which must be expressed in the whole of our daily lives”20. The sacrifice of the cross is unrepeatable21. The assembly participates in Christ’s self-offering: “In this memorial we do not only recall past events: God makes them present through the Holy Spirit, thus making us participants in Christ (1 Cor 1:9)”22. Apart from Christ we have no gifts, no worship, no sacrifice of our own to offer to God23.

The most significant breakthrough on the issue of sacrifice occurred in the Catholic dialogue with Anglicans, the dialogue that has undergone the most developed process of reception since agreed dialogue statements were followed by official responses and further clarifications. The agreement on eucharistic sacrifice was achieved through a retrieval of the notion of memorial (anamnesis): “the notion of memorial as understood in the Passover celebration at the time of Christ – i.e. the making effective in the present of an event in the past – has opened the way to a clearer understanding of the relationship between Christ’s sacrifice and 18. P.C. EMPIE – T.A. MURPHY (eds.), Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue III: The Eucharist as Sacrifice, Minneapolis, MN, Augsburg, 1967, pp. 188-189. 19. Ibid., p. 188. 20. P.C. RODGER – L. VISCHER (eds.), The Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order. The Report from Montreal 1963, pp. 73-74, as quoted in Eucharist as Sacrifice (n. 18), p. 188. 21. Ibid., p. 189. 22. See also LUTHERAN – ROMAN CATHOLIC JOINT COMMISSION, The Eucharist (1978), § 58. 23. Eucharist as Sacrifice (n. 18), pp. 188-190.

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the Eucharist. The eucharistic memorial is no mere calling to mind of a past event or of its significance, but the Church’s effectual proclamation of God’s mighty acts”24. ARCIC’s Eucharistic Doctrine: Elucidation [1979] comments that the notion of anamnesis “enables us to affirm a strong conviction of sacramental realism and to reject mere symbolism”. The document clarifies the relationship between sacrifice and memorial by saying, “[I]t is possible to say at the same time that there is only one unrepeatable sacrifice in the historical sense, but that the Eucharist is a sacrifice in the sacramental sense, provided that it is clear that this is not a repetition of the historical sacrifice. There is therefore one historical, unrepeatable sacrifice, offered once for all by Christ and accepted once for all by the Father. In the celebration of the memorial, Christ in the Holy Spirit unites his people with himself in a sacramental way so that the Church enters into the movement of his self-offering”25. Thus, the category of anamnesis enabled a distinction to be made between a historical event and its sacramental representation. This term does not compromise the uniqueness or sufficiency of the death of Christ, at the same time it avoids a doctrine of the Eucharist which sees in the Supper a repetition of Calvary. Finally, it also does not downgrade the celebration of the Supper into a mere memorial meal26. When ARCIC was criticized for its use of this term, in a statement called “The Elucidations” the Commission justified the term by citing its use in both the New Testament and in the writings of Justin Martyr and St. John Chrysostom27. The Commission also notes that the Council of Trent (Session 22, ch. 1) uses the words “commemoration” and “memoria” in explaining the relation between the sacrifice of the cross and the Eucharist; and in the Book of Common Prayer (1662) the Catechism states that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was ordained “for the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby”28. The Commission concluded that anamnesis communicates well the traditional understanding of the relationship between sacramental reality and the once-for-all event of salvation. In effect, the once-for-all historical 24. ANGLICAN – ROMAN CATHOLIC INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION, Eucharistic Doctrine (1971), § 5; cf. § 3. 25. Eucharistic Doctrine: Elucidation (1979), § 5. 26. See J.-J. VON ALLMEN, The Lord’s Supper, Richmond, VA, John Knox Press, 1976, p. 24 and KIESLING, Roman Catholic Doctrine (n. 1), p. 415. 27. ANGLICAN – ROMAN CATHOLIC INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION, The Final Report, Washington, DC, US Catholic Conference Publishing Services, 1981, pp. 18-20. 28. Ibid.

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event of the sacrifice on the cross exists under a different modality, that of sacrament, which makes present that one unrepeatable historical event. The Eucharist is a sacrifice in a sacramental way. The 1994 Clarifications of Certain Aspects of the Agreed Statements on Eucharist and Ministry, endorsed by ARCIC II, also affirmed that the propitiatory sacrifice applies to the faithful departed. The Lutheran-Catholic dialogue reaffirmed the ARCIC use of the category of memorial as understood in the Passover celebration at the time of Christ, the making present of an event in the past, as the way to understand between Christ’s sacrifice and the Eucharist29. The agreement on the sacrificial character of the Eucharist follows from an agreement on the real presence of Christ, who “is present as the Crucified one who died for our sins and rose again for our justification, as the once-for-all sacrifice for the sins of the world. This sacrifice can be neither continued, nor repeated, nor replaced nor complemented; but rather it can and should become effective every anew in the midst of the congregation”30. Because Christ who is present is the sacrificed one, the sacrifice of the Eucharist is inseparable from his presence. Once again, the category of sacramentality provides the modality of this sacrifice, so that the oncefor-all sacrifice is present with the modality of sacramentality, and therefore is not a repetition or continuation of Christ’s sacrifice. This association of presence and the sacrifice of Christ occurs in the Reformed-dialogue, where it states, In its joyful prayer of thanksgiving, “in the Eucharist”, when the Church of Christ remembers its reconciling death for our sins and for the sins of the whole world, Christ himself is present who “gave himself up on our behalf as an offering and sacrifice whose fragrance is pleasing to God” (Eph 5,2). Sanctified by his Spirit, the Church, through, with and in God’s son, Jesus Christ, offers itself to the Father. It thereby becomes a living sacrifice of thanksgiving, through which God is publicly praised (cf. Rom 12,1; 1 Pet 2,5). The validity, strength and effect of the Supper are rooted in the cross of the Lord and in his living presence in the Holy Spirit31.

This same document also states that we participate in Christ’s selfoffering: He [Christ] is both Apostle from God and our High Priest (cf. Heb 3,1) who has consecrated us together with him into one, so that in his self-offering to 29. LUTHERAN – ROMAN CATHOLIC JOINT COMMISSION, The Eucharist (1978), § 36. 30. Ibid., § 56. 31. DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE WORLD ALLIANCE OF REFORMED CHURCHES AND THE SECRETARIAT FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN UNITY, The Presence of Christ in Church and World (1977), § 81; cf. § 87; cf. § 69 and § 75.

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the Father through the eternal Spirit (cf. Heb 9,14), he offers us also in himself and so through our union with him we share in that self-offering made on our behalf. It is the same Spirit who cries “Abba, Father” (cf. Mk 14,36) in him who cries “Abba, Father” in us, as we in the Eucharist take the Lord’s Prayer into our own mouth (Rom 8,15f., 26f.).

Thus, the sacrifice is Christ’s sacrifice and is not a mere calling to mind of the past event of his sacrifice or its significance. As the Methodist-Catholic dialogue puts it, “Jesus Christ instituted the Eucharist as a holy meal, the memorial of his sacrifice. As the baptized partake of it they share the sacrament of his body given for them and his blood shed for them; they present and plead his sacrifice before God the Father; and they receive the fruits of it in faith”32. This is reaffirmed in the statement from The Denver Report, “In this celebration we share in Christ’s offering Himself in obedience to the Father’s will”33. V. ECUMENICAL DIFFERENCES The principal remaining differences regarding eucharistic sacrifice are: 1. 2.

3.

Whether the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice for the dead. Whether the worshiping assembly “offers Christ” in the sacrifice of the Mass. Lutherans have replied in the negative because they believe that only thus could they preserve the once-for-all character and the full sufficiency of the sacrifice of the cross and keep the Eucharist from becoming a human supplement to God’s saving work, a matter of “works-righteousness”. Whether Christians are central agents in the Eucharist or participant witnesses of Christ’s action in the Eucharist. It is one thing to say that the Eucharist is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving done by Christians as the memorial of Jesus dead and rising, but quite another to say that the Eucharist is Jesus’ sacrifice ritually enacted. In the first case, Christians are the central agents; in the second, Christians are participant witnesses34.

32. JOINT COMMISSION BETWEEN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE WORLD METHODIST COUNCIL, The Rio Report (1996), § 102. 33. JOINT COMMISSION BETWEEN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE WORLD METHODIST COUNCIL, The Denver Report (1971), § 83. 34. N. MITCHELL, Cult and Controversy: The Worship of the Eucharist Outside Mass, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 1982, p. 55.

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Historically, a major point of difference between Catholics and traditions issuing from the Reformation has been whether or not the church “offers” Christ in the eucharistic celebration. This problem recedes when the issue is no longer treated extrinsically as if the Church were separate from Christ, but is joined to Christ as members of a body are joined to their head. When the category of participation is introduced, the members of the body of Christ are united with him in such a way that they become participants in his self-offering and sacrifice to the Father35. The assembly does not offer Christ as if it were apart from Christ, but in union with Christ the assembly consents to be included in his self-offering. This last point, while clear in the U.S. statement, The Eucharist as Sacrifice (1967), tended not to be developed explicitly in all the documents cited. The international Lutheran-Catholic dialogue, The Eucharist (1978), however, addressed this in a similar fashion: All those who celebrate the Eucharist in remembrance of Him are incorporated in Christ’s life, passion, death and resurrection. They receive the fruit of Christ’s offering his life and thereby of the entire reconciling saving act of God. In the Passover meal of the new covenant, they are freed and united with God and with one another. So they give thanks “for all his mercies, entreat the benefits of his passion on behalf of the whole church, participate in these benefits and enter into the movement of his self-offering”. In receiving in faith, they are taken as His body into the reconciling sacrifice which equips them for self-giving (Romans 12,1) and enables them “through Jesus Christ” to offer “spiritual sacrifices” (1 Peter 2,5) in service to the world. Thus is rehearsed in the Lord’s Supper what is practiced in the whole Christian life. “With contrite hearts we offer ourselves as a living and holy sacrifice, a sacrifice which must be expressed in the whole of our daily lives” (§ 36).

This statement says that those who celebrate the Eucharist are taken up into the sacrifice of Christ. However, it does not yet say that the Church “offers” Christ, which was the point of contention at the time of the Reformation. The statement addresses this point in saying, As members of His body the believers are included in the offering of Christ. This happens in different ways: none of them is added externally to the offering of Christ, but each derives from him and points to him: The liturgical preparation of the Eucharist with the offering of bread and wine is part of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Above all, inner participation is necessary: awareness and confession of one’s own powerlessness and total dependence on God’s help, obedience to His commission, faith in His word and His promise. It is in the eucharistic presence of the offered and offering Lord that those who are redeemed by Him can, in the best sense, make an 35. Eucharist as Sacrifice (n. 18), p. 189.

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offering … It is this act of testifying to one’s own powerlessness, of complete reliance on Christ and of offering and presenting Him to the Father which is intended when the Catholic church dares to say that not only Christ offers Himself for man, but that the church also “offers” Him. The members of the body of Christ are united through Christ with God and with one another in such a way that they become participants in His worship, His self-offering, His sacrifice to the Father. Through this union between Christ and Christians the eucharistic assembly “offers Christ”, consenting in the power of the Holy Spirit to be offered by Him to the Father. Apart from Christ, we have no gift, no worship, no sacrifice of our own to offer to God. All we can plead is Christ, the sacrificial lamb and victim, who the Father himself has given us (§ 58).

This statement answers Lutheran fears that the sacrificial offering of the Mass detracts from the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. This line of reasoning also responds to the propitiatory nature of the Mass, for if Christ’s sacrifice is expiatory, that is if this sacrifice is efficacious for the forgiveness of sin, then the sacramental modality of that same sacrifice carries the same efficacy and is therefore propitiatory. Here again, the resolution of the difference is achieved by uniting the concepts of sacrificium (sacrifice) and sacramentum (sacrament). The offering of the gift occurs sacramentally. The point of difference with Lutherans, however, is whether or not the Eucharist is propitiatory for the dead as well as for the living. This was not addressed in the international statement, The Eucharist, while the issue was raised, but not answered in the U.S. document, The Eucharist as Sacrifice36. That document noted that the Apology of the Augsburg Confession does not forbid prayer for the dead (XXXIV, 94)37. Round XI of the U.S. Lutheran-Catholic dialogue discussed prayer for the dead at length in Hope of Eternal Life, approaching the topic through a theology of the communion of saints. Citing the German Lutheran Evangelische Erwachsenenkatechismus (539), it explained prayer for the dead: “The communion of believers, the church, is not broken by death. As in life, so in death the Christian is dependent on the community. In prayer, the congregation intercedes before God for the one who has fallen asleep. They ask for the forgiveness of his sin, acceptance by God, and eternal life” (§ 248). The dialogue notes, however, that the language of satisfaction remains problematic for Lutherans (§ 256-258).

36. Ibid., p. 191. 37. L.G. ALMEN – R.J. SKLBA (eds.), The Hope of Eternal Life: Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue XI, Minneapolis, MN, Lutheran University Press, 2011, pp. 91-117.

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VI. CONSEQUENCES FLOWING FROM THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SACRIFICE AND SACRAMENT J.-M.R. Tillard lists several consequences that flow from the relationship between sacrifice and sacrament as has been accepted by the dialogues cited38. First, the Eucharist belongs to the economy of grace. Its essential purpose is for people and their salvation. Second, the sign value of the sacrament assumes the aspects of a memorial which gives it a relational or analogical rather than an equivocal identity with the sacrifice of Christ. Third, as means of grace communicated to the faithful through the action of the Spirit by virtue of a past historical event of the Cross, the sacrament transcends time and space. Fourth, the sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist is inseparable from the meal aspect in that the act of eating is the sign of sacrifice. Through the act of communing the graces of the Paschal mystery are received. In this sense, communion and sacrifice are but two moments of the same action. These are certainly consequences that allay many fears of traditions issuing from the Reformation. VII. PROPOSAL FOR A WAY FORWARD: THE BI-DIRECTIONALITY OF THE CROSS Despite the progress achieved, the difference still remains regarding whether the Church is joined to Christ’s sacrifice or offers Christ. Just as the liturgical categories of sacramentality and anamnesis permitted ecumenical breakthroughs already achieved, perhaps the Trinitarian categories of mission and procession offer a lens through for addressing remaining issues regarding eucharistic sacrifice. Keeping in mind that theological language is necessarily metaphorical and analogical, one may ask whether the physical destruction of the victim to appease (propitiate) a God requiring a debt due to justice is necessary to preserve the weight of the teaching of Trent with respect to the Eucharist being a propitiatory sacrifice. Such a view seems to reference Anselm’s doctrine of atonement. An alternate expression of Jesus’ sacrifice both on the cross and in the Eucharist would be to envision it as his complete self-outpouring in obedience to mission, his being sent “for us and our salvation”, his embodiment of a love lived out completely unto death? Such a love unto death constitutes a self-oblation. Sacrificial language becomes a code word for this. I propose that in addition to the categories of sacramentality and anamnesis that have facilitated ecumenical progress on the sacrificial character 38. J.-M.R. TILLARD, Catholiques romains et Anglicans: L’Eucharistie, in Nouvelle Revue Théologique 95 (1971) 602-656, pp. 607-608.

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of the Eucharist to date, the Trinitarian relationships of mission and procession provide a hermeneutical lens for the remaining ecumenical difference, namely, the self-offering of Christ in the Eucharist, a selfoffering with which the eucharistic assembly is united. A theology of eucharistic sacrifice need not rely on a history of religions, or even an account of sacrifice in the Old Testament. One need only contemplate Jesus on the Cross and his interpretation of that even in the Last Supper. The point of departure for this is a consideration of the bi-directionality of the cross. On the one hand, Jesus’ death on the cross is pro nobis, “for us and our salvation”. This interpretation of the cross is given in the institution narratives (1 Cor 11,24, my body that is for you; Lk 22,19, body which is given for you; Mt 26,28, Mk 14,24, blood poured out for many). This is the beneficium that Luther references. On the other hand, Lk 44,46 narrates Jesus last words as “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”. The scriptures consistently recorded that during his whole life, Jesus was oriented toward the Father in his personal prayer (Lk 11,2), in his orientation to the reign of God (Mk 1,15; Lk 4,43; 8,1; 11,2; 11,20), in his resolve to do the will of the Father. This lifelong orientation to the Father culminates in his final prayer of surrender to the Father. This surrender is not the oblation of a victim to appease a God requiring justice, but the result of Jesus living to its completion his mission of identifying with humanity in the incarnation, of caring for the sick and the sinner even at times in violation of Sabbath law, of preaching the reign of God in a land of Roman occupation. This mission was in behalf of us sinners, “for us and for our salvation”. However, this mission is incomplete without his return to his Father, his orientation to the Father. For Jesus was from the Father and for the Father. Jesus’ ascension (Acts 1,9) completes the return to the Father begun on the cross. The structure of the anaphora of the eucharistic liturgy mirrors this movement of the cross. The liturgy commemorates the great exitusreditus wherein the people of God recognizes the Father as the creator and giver of gifts that are transformed in the power of the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ and returned in offering to the Father. The eucharistic liturgy is not just oriented to the res et sacramentum, the consecration of bread and wine into real body and blood of Christ so that the assembly may receive him in holy communion, but instead, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the res et sacramentum, is oriented to the res, the unity of the assembly in Christ. The body of Christ does not exist sacramentally for its own sake, but, in the words of St. Augustine, is given to us that we may become what we eat … the body of Christ. Sacramental unity effects ecclesial unity in and through union with Christ. Similarly, the eucharistic theology of Louis-Marie Chauvet emphasizes that the presence of Christ in the Church is not simply presence, esse, but

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is “presence for”, that is, adesse39. The adesse of eucharistic theology mirrors the biblical “for many”, “body given for you”, and the creedal “for us and our salvation” (Nicene Creed). The orientation ad Patrem of the eucharistic prayer is evident in the fact that the whole anaphora is a prayer directed to the Father, prayed in the first person plural “we” by the assembly. The conclusion of the eucharistic prayer prays “through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours almighty Father for ever and ever”. Herein lies the sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving offered to the Father ecumenically affirmed by Christians. The remaining ecumenical question, however, is whether Christ is offered in the Eucharist. If the ecumenical and sacramental principle is that we can affirm what happens on the cross as being represented in a different modality, that of sacrament, in the liturgy, then the ad Patrem surrender on the cross is also present in the liturgy. This occurs in the language of offering within the anamnesis: we offer “this holy Bread of eternal life and the Chalice of ‘everlasting salvation’ (eucharistic prayers I & II). This is not an offering of the assembly as separate from Christ, but as united with Christ as a result of the epiclesis, which not only transforms bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, but also unites the assembly with Christ so that they are the members of his body. The bi-directionality of the cross and the exitus-reditus of the liturgy can be translated into the Trinitarian categories of mission and procession. Within a theology of Trinitarian mission, the Son and the Spirit are sent by the Father into the economy, that is, the world to communicate the love of God to that which is not God and to effect salvation. A sacrificial theology of the Eucharist is situated within a kenotic missional theology of being sent to identify with suffering and sinful humanity. Mission, however, is not complete in the kenotic moment, but in the return to the Father from whence Christ was sent. The return is the redemptive moment, the offering wherein all is recapitulated in Christ. In his return to the Father, sacrifice becomes inherently Trinitarian as Christians eucharistically participate in the divine perichoresis in Christ. Regis College Department of Theology University of Toronto 100 Wellesley St. W. Toronto ON. M5S 2Z5, Canada [email protected] 39. CHAUVET, Symbol and Sacrament (n. 3), p. 389.

Susan K. WOOD

SACRAMENTS OF THE WORD IN THE SPIRIT A HERMENEUTICAL-THEOLOGICAL DEEPENING OF CHAUVET’S NOTION OF ANAMNESIS IN SERVICE TO ECUMENISM IN THE CONTEMPORARY WESTERN CONTEXT

When one thinks of the historical and continuing impact of the Protestant Reformation, one cannot help but be confronted with the central esteem afforded to the Word of God by the sixteenth-century reformers and their present-day descendants. In Roman Catholicism, one can gratefully see the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and the work of such theologians as Yves Congar and Marie-Dominique Chenu as restoring the Word to its rightful place as being a centrally important theological concept. This development is also clearly seen within sacramental and liturgical theology. In this paper, we will be examining a theologian who combines a liturgical method which is both systematic and fundamental theological, namely, Louis-Marie Chauvet. We will see, ultimately, how Chauvet’s combination of theological engagement with the Word, pneumatology, and ecclesiology helps to frame the sacraments in such a way so that they can, in his words, be granted “their own” and “rightful” place1. We will further note how this rightful place is characterized by a remembering which is oriented to past, present, and future, something which we will see operative in his understanding of anamnesis. It is at this juncture that we will bring in insights from the document From Conflict to Communion of the Lutheran – Roman Catholic Commission for Unity, particularly what it says about Roman Catholic and Lutheran consensus regarding the nature of anamnesis in relation to overcoming divisions on understanding of the Mass as a sacrifice2. This will then lead to a consideration of how this notion could be deepened by adopting a more thorough theological hermeneutics to this concept, and we will frame this in terms of insights appropriated from Lieven Boeve’s 1. T. FRIES, Den Sakramenten den ihnen zustehenden Platz einräumen: Interview mit Louis-Marie Chauvet, in M. STUFLESSER (ed.), Fundamentaltheologie des Sakramentalen: Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Louis-Marie Chauvets „Symbol und Sakrament“, Regensburg, Pustet, 2015, 209-218, p. 210. 2. LUTHERAN WORLD FEDERATION – PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN UNITY, From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017, Leipzig, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt; Paderborn, Bonifatius, 2013. See especially the “Five Ecumenical Imperatives”, ibid., pp. 87-89.

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theology of interruption. We will conclude by seeing how such a deepening can help both churches in their dialogue with the world, as well as in their continuing dialogue with each other. I. CHAUVET ON THE WORD OF GOD In order to properly understand Chauvet’s conception of the Word of God, it is necessary to place the discussion in terms of Chauvet’s tripartite understanding of Christian identity as consisting of the three necessary and inter-related elements of Scripture, sacrament, and ethics. The Word of God is only accessible as mediated, and the Scriptures (understood both as the canonical Bible as well as the long history of theological reflection thereupon) are the primary mediation of the memory of the Word. However, the Word and the Scriptures that mediate encounter with Him are not to be understood as concepts which are ends in themselves, leading the hearer to mentally understanding what is “right” belief; rather, they are invitations to a double movement of giving the Word a body in the world sacramentally which is all verified through a generous response to the gift received, an “obligated generosity”, which finds expression through ethical action3. All of this is directed to the raising up of a “eucharistic people” that is, a people who constantly go out of themselves in thanksgiving for the gift of faith received, making this act the return gift to God. In the end, the world becomes ever more eucharisticised, that is marked with eucharistic brothers and sisters who make an “ethical testimony of mutual sharing” lived as an expression of what God has shared with humankind through Christ4. To summarize, we can say, first, that the Word of God is not, primarily, something which can be the object of conceptual knowledge; it is, rather, a summons to action and praxis. Insofar as the movement from text to body (and, ultimately, action) is centered sacramentally and also liturgically, we can position Chauvet’s theological method along with a long line of liturgical theologians who understand the liturgy as the place of theologia prima5. Secondly, we can also say that the Word is always mediated – initially by the words of Scripture, but also and eventually by 3. Cf. L.-M. CHAUVET, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 1995, pp. 101-102, 161-179. 4. L.-M. CHAUVET, The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2001, p. 28. 5. Cf. A. KAVANAGH, On Liturgical Theology: The Hale Memorial Lectures of Seabury-Western Theological Seminary 1981, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 1992;

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the bodies which appropriate that word sacramentally and verify that appropriation by their ethical praxis. In saying that the Word is always mediated, and that this mediation takes place eminently through the liturgy, it seems unavoidable that something is also said about the mediation of the Church itself. The Church as a whole is that which sustains the triple structure of Christian identity which we highlighted above, and can, in this way, be said to be the mediation of Christ to the world. While Chauvet would not maintain that “outside the church circle there is no salvation”, he would maintain that “outside the church circle there is no recognized salvation”6. While maintaining (following Vatican II) that there is a possibility of salvation to people who are not Christian, Chauvet maintains that for Christians there is no alternative other than to become members of the visible Church7. One necessary caveat at this point, however: the circle that surrounds the triangle of symbol-sacrament-ethics and, therefore, the Church, should not be understood as being closed, but rather as being “made up of dotted lines”8. That is to say, the Church is seen as the sacrament of God’s reign and must never be confused with the reign of God itself9. The reign of God, even though sacramentally mediated by the action of the Church, is also present in the wider world in many and diverse ways. This is one of the main reasons why Chauvet emphasizes the presence of difference and openness to the other10. Be that as it may, this is only one side of the issue for Chauvet. For, in order to be recognized as the D.W. FAGERBERG, Theologia Prima: What Is Liturgical Theology?, Chicago, IL, Hillenbrand Books, 2004. 6. CHAUVET, The Sacraments (n. 4), p. 29. My emphasis. 7. Cf. Gaudium et Spes 22 and Lumen Gentium 16. 8. CHAUVET, The Sacraments (n. 4), p. 29. 9. Ibid. 10. This conception of difference is itself intrinsically connected to Chauvet’s pneumatology. Chauvet emphasized that sacraments not only possessed a Christological Pole, but as well a pneumatological pole. Cf. CHAUVET, Symbol and Sacrament (n. 3), pp. 492531. The Spirit is here conceived as “the Difference of God inscribing itself into human corporality”, the means whereby God (as Other) becomes mediated to human beings, taking on flesh in other others and, thereby, investing “humanity and the universe with the resurrectional power of Christ” which leads to the creation of an alliance of brothers and sisters in the world (ibid., pp. 518, 520). Openness to concrete others who are mediations of God’s grace thus can be seen as one of the implications of Chauvet’s theological methodology. The Spirit is, furthermore, the means of God’s communicating with human beings through concrete others without doing violence to the alterity of either God or concrete others, for “the Spirit enables the communication of God at the same moment in which it preserves the radical difference” (L.-M. CHAUVET, Sacrements dans l’Esprit, in ID., Le corps, chemin de Dieu: Les sacrements, Paris, Bayard, 2010, 151-172, p. 158; all translations are ours).

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sacrament of the reign, it must visibly “show the marks of the reign”, namely the three components of Christian identity as identified above11. The Word of God, then, while necessarily mediated by the Church is not to be limited to it – the Word and its action are also to be found in the wider world, a work that requires constant and careful discernment. When it comes to including the work and action of the Spirit in this theology of the Word, Chauvet begins by returning back to the relation between Sacrament and Scripture, a relation which sees the sacraments as “the precipitate (…) of the Scriptures as word”12. Quoting the Augustinian adage, “the word comes over the element and [it] becomes sacrament”13, Chauvet maintains that this must be understood on three levels, namely, 1) christologically, insofar as the Word, “which through the Spirit comes over the element (…) is Christ himself”, 2) liturgically, insofar as Christ is always “informed” by the theme and “color” of the liturgy of the day, and 3) properly sacramentally, insofar as the words which mediate Christ are spoken by an ordained minister who speaks them in persona Christi14. Interestingly and importantly, Chauvet warns against seeing any of these elements detached from the remaining two, or thinking that we can link the christological and sacramental elements without including the properly liturgical one. The liturgical action is, for Chauvet, both “the concrete mediation in which the always-same Christ reaches the assembly”, and also that which “constitutes sacramental theology”, for, without the concrete liturgical action, sacramental theology “would drift into abstraction”15. The Word mediated and proclaimed by the liturgy, in order to “make” the sacrament, needs also the concrete mediation of the liturgical context itself, and this context is made up of the celebrating assembly itself which is made up of a wide variety of subjects who maintain their irreducible otherness and difference even as they gather as one ecclesial body. It is, indeed, the Word (Christ) who is mediated through the liturgy and thereby “becomes” sacrament. Chauvet draws a connection between this word and the Hebrew word dabar, drawing scriptural evidence pointing to the fact that the dabar Adonai should be understood dynamically as action, event, and efficient word (parole-efficace)16. Furthermore, this 11. CHAUVET, The Sacraments (n. 4), p. 29. See also: ID., Symbol and Sacrament (n. 3), p. 180. 12. CHAUVET, The Sacraments (n. 4), p. 47. 13. Ibid., p. 47 and n. 7: “Accedit verbum ad elementum et fit sacramentum”. 14. CHAUVET, The Sacraments (n. 4), p. 48. 15. Ibid. 16. L.-M. CHAUVET, Parole et sacrement, in ID., Le corps, chemin de Dieu (n. 10), 105-130, p. 118.

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word is seen as being revealed in the history of Israel as “the power at work at the heart of events”, a power which was later picked up upon by the later Wisdom and Logos traditions17. It is ultimately within this perspective that “a sacrament is nothing else other than the epiphany of the essence of dabar”18. Chauvet continues by noting that “it is true that the word wants to arrive as event to the point that it comes to be deployed on the body and even (eucharistically) in the body (dans le corps) of participants”19. A sacrament is, ultimately, “the completion or the accomplishment (l’achèvement ou l’accomplissement) of the Scriptures as the Word of God”20. To put it another way, a sacrament is “the Word of God proclaimed come to its truth”, a truth which “auto-implicates” both the individual hearer and the Church as a whole21. For Chauvet, this act of “auto-implication” is nothing other than truly appropriating the Word as our own and, thereby, being touched to the quick, nearly overwhelmed by the immensity of the gift we have received – nearly overwhelmed. For the verification of this auto-implication is our giving a return-gift in the form of witness and ethical action. The deployed word which starts this process is an efficacious word, but its efficaciousness is one that should not become entangled in the scholastic notion of efficaciousness and linguistic instrumentality that Chauvet rejects. A sacrament’s efficaciousness is not, therefore, something that happens “automatically” or “instrumentally” just because a sacramental word is uttered by a validly ordained minister, but is, rather, an efficaciousness that is situated in terms of Chauvet’s notion of symbolic mediation22. A sacrament’s efficaciousness is, indeed, a symbolic efficaciousness insofar as it is concerned more with praxis than with ideas: “it aims at properly joining Christ and the church (and more widely, God and humanity) and within the church the members among themselves as ‘daughters and sons’ and ‘sisters and brothers’ in Christ”23. The exchange which takes place between God and the recipient in the sacramental action is thus to be understood as a symbolic exchange, which compellingly depicts grace as the res of the sacrament. Chauvet justifies this both because God is the one who first starts this process, thereby preserving the pure gratuity of grace, and because grace’s pure graciousness ensures that it is completely outside of the realm of value and utility – 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

Ibid., pp. 118-119. Ibid., p. 119. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 120-121. CHAUVET, The Sacraments (n. 4), pp. 85-96. Ibid., p. 85.

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making it an anti-object, which for Chauvet is the object of symbolic exchange24. Grace as an anti-object is to be received as a summons to be and act, a summons to begin the work of conversion which consists in both giving up our pretensions of limiting God to our concepts and the will to witness to the gift received by our ethical action. This conversion is the work of the Word which was mediated to and appropriated by us, but it is also equally the work of the Spirit, for “the plowshare of the Word of God is not able to work/convert the subjects unless by means (…) of the Holy Spirit which alone renders this word living”25. Grace, then, should be understood less as “an object received” and more as “the process of receiving oneself from God, through Christ, by means of (moyennant) the Spirit”26. For Chauvet, ultimately, there is a necessary connection between Word and Spirit, for “a sacrament cannot be any longer considered apart from the action of the Spirit which is itself not able to be considered outside of the terrain of the Word”27. It is precisely here, notes Chauvet, that it is possible to discern “a space of considerable ecumenical convergence”28. The question now before us is how such an understanding relates with insights extracted from From Conflict to Communion (hereafter abbreviated as “FCTC”), particularly, in the interests of time and space, focusing on what it says about the Eucharist as sacrifice in its fourth chapter29. II. THEOLOGICAL CONSENSUS ON THE EUCHARIST 500 YEARS ON: THE EUCHARIST AS SACRIFICE After noting that “Luther’s main objection to Catholic Eucharistic doctrine” is “directed against an understanding of the Mass as a sacrifice”, FCTC goes on to claim that the root of the problem was a misunderstanding 24. CHAUVET, Parole et sacrement (n. 16), pp. 125-126. Cf. CHAUVET, Symbol and Sacrement (n. 3), pp. 44-45. 25. CHAUVET, Parole et sacrement (n. 16), p. 128. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid., p. 129. See note 10 above: A sacrament is made up of the particularity of the Word (christological) which takes on flesh in the flesh of the different, of the other. Word and Spirit need each other in order to prevent either a closed conceptual “grasping” of the Word, or an overly universalized “spiritualized” obsession with difference and otherness which comes to dominate the particularity of the Word. 28. CHAUVET, Parole et sacrement (n. 16), p. 129. 29. From Conflict to Communion (n. 2), §§ 140-161, pp. 54-60.

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of the category of anamnesis, beginning in the late Middle Ages30. Due to a rediscovery of the category of eucharistic anamnesis – which is rightly credited to the twentieth-century liturgical movement – we have been able to “resolve the controversial question of how one sets the once-for-all sufficient sacrifice of Christ in right relationship to the Lord’s Supper”, insofar as that through the liturgical action “the remembrance comes into being in which Jesus’ word and saving work themselves become present”31. FCTC goes on to note that “the decisive achievement was to overcome the separation of sacrificium from sacramentum”, for if Christ “is really present in the Lord’s Supper, then his life, death, and resurrection, are truly present together with his body (…) so that the Lord’s Supper is the true making present of the event of the cross”32. It should be noted that the “forgetting” of a proper sense of anamnesis is something also noted by Chauvet in a text wherein he examines the development of the notion of the Mass as sacrifice in the Middle Ages33. Taking this together with his discussion of anamnesis in Symbol and Sacrament, where he identifies it as “the fundamental place of the Church’s offering”, we can make the following observations34. We note with Chauvet that the location of the anamnesis in the Roman eucharistic prayers couples together the moments of receiving the transformed eucharistic elements together with an offering of them. Indeed, after the priest recites the Words of Institution and the people respond with an acclamation of the Mystery of Faith, the priest calls to mind the Paschal Mystery, immediately followed by the line: “we offer you, Lord, the Bread of life and the Chalice of salvation”35. This is all to say that the “gift of God (…) requires the return-gift of an offering in thanksgiving”, though “considered within the whole of the Eucharistic Prayer, this same gift implies a return-gift other than this ritual oblation in the anamnesis”36. The return-gift which is required, and which is attested to in the second

30. Ibid., § 146, p. 55. 31. Ibid., § 147, p. 59. 32. Ibid., § 159, pp. 59-60. 33. Cf. L.-M. CHAUVET, La messe comme sacrifice au Moyen Âge au Concile de Trente: Pratiques et théories, in ID., Le corps, chemin de Dieu (n. 10), 251-285. “The circle is here completed: the Mass is a sacrifice, and, at the same time, a memorial. The rediscovery of this biblical and patristic term permitted the rising over of every ambiguity on this point” (ibid., p. 285). 34. CHAUVET, Symbol and Sacrament (n. 3), p. 276. 35. Cf.: Eucharistic Prayer 2, in The Roman Missal, Totowa, NJ, Catholic Book Publishing, 32011. 36. CHAUVET, Symbol and Sacrament (n. 3), p. 276.

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epiclesis which immediately follows the anamnesis asking the Holy Spirit to gather us “as one”, is situated in the realm of witness and ethics which we discussed above37. It is striking that the discussion of ecumenical consensus centering on the category of anamnesis in FCTC does not make this connection between sacramental anamnesis and ethics, especially as it notes at its conclusion that “Catholics and Lutherans should witness together to the mercy of God in proclamation and service to the world” – a work which has been already ongoing and bearing ecumenical fruit38. In not making this connection, it risks bypassing a rich theological grounding to ethical witness and service, and only reinforces the separation between sacramental theology and ethics which Chauvet rightly criticizes. Furthermore, concerns over the Mass being perceived as a “repeating” or “completing” of the sacrifice of the cross could be further avoided, it seems, by connecting the content of the eucharistic remembrance, not only to the offering of what happened “once-for-all” in the past, but also to what happens now, each day, when the Crucified and Risen One is given a body in history. This is a progressive movement which has taken place in both churches, particularly as Catholics have expanded on the meaning of anamnesis and Lutherans – influenced by the twentieth-century liturgical movement – have restored an anamnesis to their eucharistic prayers. III. THE ROLE OF THE OTHER IN THE APPROPRIATION OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH It seems, indeed, a missed opportunity that FCTC did not draw any clear theological connection between the work of common witness in the world and the celebration of the Eucharist. This omission strikes one as very unfortunate indeed, it seems, particularly as making a clear connection between the word received at the Tables of the Word and the Body, and the word which is given a body to serve in the world, would help to undercut concerns pertaining to understanding the Mass as a sacrifice. While I do think that Chauvet’s theological approach would have helped to make this connection, I would also maintain that a deepening of the hermeneutical potential of Chauvet’s approach would assist, not only ecumenical efforts themselves, but also to strengthen and enhance the work of common witness in the world which FCTC calls on members of 37. Cf. Eucharistic Prayer 2 (n. 35). 38. From Conflict to Communion (n. 2), §§ 244-245, pp. 88-89.

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both churches to engage in. In this section, I will sketch how Chauvet understands the way that the Church should interact with the “others” in the world, and in the following one I will suggest a hermeneutical deepening of it in service to “common witness” in the contemporary Western context. As we have seen, for Chauvet our liturgical participation and concomitant incorporation into the Church should not be seen as an end in itself but, rather, as leading us outward to ethical witness and service. Our ethical action serves, indeed, as a kind of verificatory praxis whereby we show that we have, indeed, come to faith. Another way of saying this would be that the appropriation of the Christian faith is not oriented inward, concerned with the articulation and maintenance of a closed identity which is positioned against a hostile and unbelieving world, but rather oriented outward to encountering, serving and dialoguing with various others in the world. It should also be pointed out that this outward orientation is itself theologically grounded for Chauvet in the fact that the other him/herself is endued with a theological significance. Let us now briefly see why this is so. We recall that, for Chauvet, the Church is identified as being the fundamental sacrament of the reign, a reign which necessarily exceeds the ecclesial-sacramental mediation thereof39. The Church, through its common confession of faith which is then sacramentally embodied and appropriated through the liturgy, possesses irreducible “reference points for her identity” which allow the Church to be recognized as the sacrament of the reign in the first place40. These marks of irreducible particularity – the three interrelated components of Christian identity, but also seemingly mundane elements such as the smell of incense – serve to distinguish it from other religions of “groups”. Nevertheless, when Christian identity becomes reduced to these elements of particularity, then problems begin to arise. Indeed, for Chauvet the particular elements of our Christian identity only function properly and therefore enable the Church to be fundamental sacrament if they supply an outward orientation to the other. Chauvet notes that “the paradox of the Church is precisely that it is never more faithful to its particular marks than when it in some sense forgets them to open itself” to the reign “which grows in the world”41. The marks of our particularity, then, – from what constitutes the fundamental nature 39. Cf. CHAUVET, Symbol and Sacrament (n. 3), p. 180; The Sacraments (n. 4), p. 28. 40. CHAUVET, Symbol and Sacrament (n. 3), p. 180. 41. Ibid., p. 181.

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of Christian identity all the way down to liturgical colors and sacred music – only serve as sacramental mediations if and only if they simultaneously remain true to their own particularity and point outward to a universal, uncontainable reign which necessarily exceeds that particularity. It is only if the Church maintains this paradoxical identity and existence that she “can be called the ‘sacrament of God’”, though this requires careful discernment not to fall into one of two equally dangerous traps42. These two traps, the first of which is a reactionary retreat into particularity wherein the Church becomes a kind of “club of those who may possibly be saved”, and the second, a sort of “reign without the Church”, represent a failure to live in the dynamic and tensive position which the Church is called to occupy43. The Church, then, sits on this dynamic and properly eschatological space: she proclaims the presence of the reign of God through her particularity, but she simultaneously proclaims that this particularity does not have a hegemonizing hold on the universality of God’s reign. In relating all of this to our comments above regarding the theological significance of an open orientation to the other, we can make the following observations. First, it seems that we can say that ethical praxis, insofar as it is oriented to a witnessing to the other, is the privileged means of allowing the universality of the reign to come into contact with Christian particularity. Secondly, the other and the elsewhere are only able to be identified with the reign from out of the perspective of ecclesial particularity. In other words, even though the reign of God is “larger than the Church, (…) the latter is its condition and its primary expression”44. The particularity of the Church, then, is the privileged expression of the reign and gives it a concrete and recognizable shape in the world. Because of this, it can be said as providing the lens with which to look at the world which enables us to, in fact, see the world as constituting the uncontainable reign. For this reason one can understand and appreciate Chauvet’s privileging of liturgical participation and ecclesial incorporation; it is only if we are incorporated into the Church and thereby celebrating the liturgy that we can become more and more attuned to discerning the presence of the reign in the world. In other words, our liturgical participation and integration into the Church should not lead us inward, but outward, and if we realize that the opposite is happening that is a sure sign that we have not appropriated the faith fully, and may 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. CHAUVET, The Sacraments (n. 4), p. xxi.

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even have fallen victim to one of the “necrotic temptations” which Chauvet identifies as being a constant threat to authentic Christian life45. Clearly, then, the posture of the Church vis-à-vis the world should be seen as fundamentally open and positive. Such an open and positive orientation should not be seen as being motivated by either a “sacramental view of the world” or a discerning of the “seeds of the word” in the world, but, rather, as being motivated by a concern that the particularity of the Church stands in need of the other in order to enable its appropriation by individual Christians. In other words, the only way that an individual Christian is verified in the appropriation of the Christian faith is if s/he goes out to encounter the other in ethical witness and service. Neither the Church, nor an individual Christian can claim to hold the fullness of the Christian faith, if the faith claimed is seen as an object – doctrinal “purity”, liturgical rigidity, or ethical/political ideology. Rather, the faith we appropriate is always a summons to go out of ourselves in ethical service, and this experience should, it seems, have an effect on the sacramental structure that mediates the faith itself. Such an insight, while alluded to and seminally present in Chauvet’s writings has not been fully developed by him and only minimally commented upon by secondary authors46. It is this gap which I wish to address, and in order to do that, I suggest a deepening of the hermeneutical potential of Chauvet’s theology, a move I make by appropriating Lieven Boeve’s concept of interruption47. 45. These are, reducing religion to a closed system of conceptual knowledge, reducing religion to a form of magical sacramental incantation, or reducing religion to narrow moralism (Cf. CHAUVET, Symbol and Sacrament [n. 3], pp. 173-177). In order to live authentic Christian lives, then, we must resist these temptations, renouncing “our ambition to capture Christ in our ideological nets or in the ruses of our desire” (ibid., p. 173). 46. Glenn P. Ambrose, notes that the liturgical prayers themselves do not immediately lend themselves to the symbolic model Chauvet advocates, for “it is also doubtful those that do listen attentively to the eucharistic prayer interpret it in light of the model of symbolic exchange” (G.P. AMBROSE, The Theology of Louis-Marie Chauvet: Overcoming Onto-Theology with the Sacramental Tradition, Farnham, Ashgate, 2012, p. 192). Timothy M. Brunk likewise laments the fact that Chauvet’s ecclesiocentric approach allows those on the margins of Church and society to “express and ritualize their empowerment within sacramental celebrations themselves” (T.M. BRUNK, Liturgy and Life: The Unity of Sacrament and Ethics in the Theology of Louis-Marie Chauvet, Brussels, Peter Lang, 2007, p. 217). Identifying the problem aside, the only secondary author who is sympathetic to Chauvet’s project and offers a possible corrective is Vincent Miller who suggests utilizing resources from the Frankfurt School with some expansion of Chauvet’s Ricœurian insights in order to envision a way that ideological distortion can be eliminated from sacramental structure (V. MILLER, An Abyss at the Heart of Mediation: Louis-Marie Chauvet’s Fundamental Theology of Sacramentality, in Horizons 24 [1997] 230-247). 47. Cf. L. BOEVE, A New Method: Recontextualization Leads to Interruption, in ID., God Interrupts History: Theology in a Time of Upheaval, London, Continuum, 2007,

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IV. ENHANCING AND FURTHER ARTICULATING CHAUVET’S THEOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS BY MEANS OF THE THEOLOGY OF INTERRUPTION Faced with the drastic socio-religious changes which have taken place in Western European Society over the last several decades, Boeve has introduced the concept of “interruption” as a new means of understanding the relationship between faith and context48. While admitting that his project owes much to modern forms of correlation theology, Boeve also maintains that the “modern” conversation partner – that is, the grands récits of modernity – has been fundamentally challenged and deconstructed by the postmodern epistemological critique49. Faced with this fact, Boeve does not see this as an excuse to completely give up on the modern project, but rather as an opportunity to commit ourselves to “a consistent recontextualization of the correlation method”50. Such a recontextualization amounts to taking seriously the fundamental insights of the correlation method, namely, that “dialogue with the context should not be suspended”, and that “there can be no presupposition of discontinuity between the Christian faith and the contemporary context”51. Having said that, however, the modern presupposition of 30-49; ID., Interrupting Tradition: An Essay on Christian Faith in a Postmodern Context, Leuven, Peeters, 2003. Chauvet, Boeve notes, has “brought theology to the threshold of the Postmodern context”, and that it is “out from this perspective that we appreciate Chauvet’s undertaking, deepen it, and fine-tune it where necessary” (L. BOEVE, Sacramentologie als fundamentele theologie: De bijdrage van L.-M. Chauvet tot een postmoderne hermeneutische theologie, in T. KNIEPS-PORT LE ROI – L. BOEVE [eds.], Gods sacramentele aanwezigheid in de wereld van vandaag: Hulde aan professor dr. Lambert Leijssen bij zijn emeritaat, Leuven, Acco, 2008, 135-155, pp. 137, 154). See also ID., Theology in a Postmodern Context and the Hermeneutical Project of Louis-Marie Chauvet, in P. BORDEYNE – B.T. MORRILL (eds.), Sacraments: Revelation of the Humanity of God: Engaging the Fundamental Theology of Louis-Marie Chauvet, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2008, 5-23. 48. For a description of this altered socio-religious situation, see L. BOEVE, Horizon: The Challenge of Plurality and Difference, in ID., Theology at the Crossroads of University, Church, and Society: Dialogue, Difference, and Catholic Identity, London, Bloomsbury, 2016, 33-53; ID., The European Religious Situation: A ‘Post-Secular’ and ‘PostChristian’ Context, in ID., God Interrupts History (n. 47), 13-29; ID., The Postmodern Context: The Definitive End of Tradition?, in ID., Interrupting Tradition (n. 47), pp. 51-66. 49. Cf. L. BOEVE, Philosophy in the Postmodern Condition: On the Incredulity of Modern Master Narratives and Bearing Witness to the Differend, in ID., Lyotard and Theology, London, Bloomsbury, 2014, 11-28. 50. BOEVE, A New Method (n. 47), p. 37. “Some favor a genuine post-modern theology in the chronical sense of the term: a theology after modernity, a theology that leaves modernity behind, or at the very least its secular presuppositions” (ibid., p. 36). Boeve identifies the “‘Radical Orthodoxy’ movement which has taken the world by storm” as being one such representative of this line of thinking (ibid.). 51. Ibid., pp. 37-38.

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there being a continuity between the rationalities of the context and the Christian faith has been thrown very much into question by the postmodern epistemological critique. Ultimately, Boeve notes, “from both the descriptive and normative perspectives, the current context teaches theology to be aware of plurality, difference, and particularity”, while, at the same time, warning “against the facile appeal to consensus, harmony, and continuity”52. What this then amounts to is nothing less than theology daring “to question the very habits it has made known in dialogue with the modern context (and at the same time with modern philosophy, the humanities, and sciences)”53. In other words, insofar as the postmodern critical consciousness has given us a sensitivity both to plurality and difference, as well as the concomitant importance accorded to particularity, theologians are called to be mindful, not only of the wide variety of different and competing rationalities, but also that each of these rationalities are to be respected in their irreducible particularity and otherness. In our contemporary context, then, where the postmodern epistemological critique has effectively deconstructed the various modern grand narratives, we are left with particularity, plurality, and difference without a direct means of synthesizing them into a hegemonic, harmonious consensus. It is at this point that Boeve introduces the concept of interruption as a methodological and heuristic tool which, while respecting the irreducible particularity of the Christian narrative, is able to account for irreducible particularity, difference, and otherness. Interruption, Boeve notes, is “a fitting theological category that can support the methodological recontextualization in which we are engaged as regards the precise relationship between Christianity and present-day culture”54. The concept is seen as being able to hold together continuity and discontinuity insofar as it both emphasizes the particularity of a narrative (continuity), and the fact that narratives are meant to be opened by the interruption of the other (discontinuity) who escapes the limitations of any narrative which has become closed. For Boeve, the Christian narrative “owes its very existence to the dynamics of a God who revealed Godself to humanity in history without becoming identified with humanity and history” it is a narrative “of a God who calls us to continual conversion and to the rejection of every form of sin, suffering” and oppressive closure to the other and the elsewhere55. This, then, leads Boeve to note that it would seem as if

52. 53. 54. 55.

Ibid., p. 38. Ibid. Ibid., p. 41. BOEVE, Interrupting Tradition (n. 47), p. 106.

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“the Christian narrative exists by grace of boundary experiences and experiences of alterity”, and it is “in the very experience of [discontinuous] alterity” that “the believer recognizes the elusive God who always beckons further”, always interruptively breaks open any narratival closure, structural or personal56. The legitimacy of referring to interruption as a theological category is further grounded for Boeve in the witness of the Scriptures which, in multiple places, point to this fact57. While this pattern is found throughout the Scriptures, it is the Paschal Mystery which is seen the “paradigm of interruption”, the divine guarantee that whenever narratives claim to be definitively closed – even by death – “God nevertheless still breaks them open”58. Ultimately, Boeve concludes that “the entire metaphorical constitution of the Christian narrative appears to be permeated by the interruption, on God’s behalf, of narratives, including one’s own narrative, through confrontation with otherness”59. V. THE EUCHARISTIC ANAMNESIS AS PLACE OF REMEMBERING, ENABLING CONSTANT DISCERNMENT To connect these considerations with what Chauvet has said regarding the eucharistic anamnesis, we can make the following observations. Insofar as the anamnesis is seen as a simultaneous looking back to the memory of the Paschal Mystery and a looking forward to the return-gift, the contemporary “offering” of lives in loving service which will reach its fulfilment in the eschaton, we can say that the anamnesis is the ritualized moment wherein the past, present, and future interruptions of God are memorialized60. If we understand interruption as the theological tool 56. Ibid. 57. I.e.: “the call of Abraham, the Exodus tradition, the figure of the Prophet, the Pilgrim, the Suffering Servant…” (BOEVE, God Interrupts History [n. 47], pp. 46-47). 58. Ibid., pp. 46, 47. 59. Ibid., p. 46. 60. While not utilizing the concept of “interruption”, Bruce T. Morrill refers to Johann Baptist Metz’ notion of Eingedenken or “remembrancing” as a means of connecting “‘the fundamental anamnestic structure of mind and spirit’ or a ‘remembrance-structure’ that Christians can bring to the social-ethical arena” (B.T. MORRILL, Time, Absence, and Otherness: Divine-Human Paradoxes Bonding Liturgy and Ethics, in BORDEYNE – MORRILL [eds.], Sacraments: Revelation of the Humanity of God [n. 47], 137-152, pp. 140141, quoting J.-B. METZ, A Passion for God: The Mystical-Political Dimension of Christianity, New York, Paulist, 1998, p. 181). For Morrill, it is a return to this concept which is one of the ways in which Chauvet’s theology can be assisted to rid it of ideologies which prevent the liturgical assembly from seeing liturgical texts as “performative utterances,

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with which to conceptualize the boundary experiences of alterity which are the graced life-blood of its very existence, this has direct consequences for how we understand anamneses. It is, indeed, the anamnesis which serves as a reminder of the fact that God always escapes the clutches of our narrative, always is that which beckons us further to the other and the elsewhere, always bidding us to open narratives and structures which have become closed off to transformative encounters with otherness. The anamnesis as memorializing the past event of God’s definitive interruption through the Paschal Mystery is one thing, however, and seeing it as the ritualized eschatological future remembering of ethical service and witness is something else. We cannot think, therefore, that the future interruption of God, or ourselves interrupting on God’s behalf, are things that can be clearly delineated or identified in the same way that we can identify the event of the Paschal Mystery as setting the paradigm of divine interruption. Situated as we are in the eschatological time of the Church, that is, the time of mediations, we must acknowledge that the interruptions we experience, as well as the interruptions we perform as an exercise in imitatio Christi, are also mediated through concrete embodied others whose motivations are often an ambiguous mix of the “divine” and the “human”. While Chauvet would say that it is impossible to sift out and separate the divine and the human, insofar as the divine can only come as mediated through the human, various secondary commentators have already pointed out that a weakness of Chauvet’s theological project is his lack of attention for the way ideologies can so corrupt the human mediations that, eventually, the legitimacy of the sacramental mediation itself can be rightly called into question61. While these critiques have mostly focused on how the sacramental mediations can become clouded by ideology due to various ad intra elements, it seems just as legitimate to note that these mediations can become likewise ideologically corrupted due to elements ad extra. In other words: just because the others we encounter in our ethical service “interrupt” us with their own rationalities and challenges, it does not mean that we should uncritically adopt their perspective in such a way that we compromise the particularity of our own perspective or the particularity of our own Christian/ecclesial mediations. experiencing them as manifestations of God’s gracious desires for humanity, and, indeed, all creation” (ibid., p. 140). The approach outlined here should be seen in continuity with this insight, particularly as Boeve himself borrows the word interruption from Metz. See also: B.T. MORRILL, Anamnesis as Dangerous Memory: Political and Liturgical Theology in Dialogue, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2000. 61. Cf. n. 46 above.

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What is needed, it seems, is a means of subjecting interruptions to a process of discernment, whereby both players in the interruption are able to be mutually interrupted in such a way that new horizons of meaning are able to present themselves as a grace and gift. Insofar as the liturgical context is the place where Christians receive the grace and gift of faith, it seems appropriate to say that liturgical prayer and worship should be seen as the privileged context wherein both the interrupter and the “interruptees” enter into this prayerful discernment. In order to make this less abstract, one can perhaps think of an individual who is divorced and remarried, or a homosexually oriented person who is married to a person of the same sex being allowed to pray through his/her reservations with certain aspects of Church teaching, even as the representatives of the Church are enabled to pray through their own narratives and understandings surrounding questions of sexual and familial morality. Such an approach presupposes, of course, that both parties accept the narratival and therefore incomplete and open character of their claims. Sometimes, indeed, individuals with one or another closed narrative, a narrative closed completely inward and focused only on their own experience, need to be jolted out of their closed inwardness. This is why interruption proves to be quite helpful – the moment of interruption consists in nothing less than the clear articulation of one’s own perspective to the other. It is not in the moment of interruption, however, that new perspectives of mutual understanding and enrichment present themselves however, but rather in what follows, namely, the moment of praying, listening, and discernment. In order to help articulate how this would function, I’ve elsewhere already engaged the philosophical hermeneutics of Paul Ricœur, particularly his theory of metaphor62. For Ricœur, metaphors are particularly useful insofar as they help to reveal hidden or dormant shades of meaning to already existent realities. They do this by applying perhaps surprising predicates to realities which, with time, become accepted as having been dormant in the realities themselves. For example, if I refer to the pile of papers and books on my desk as a “mountain of work”, the first logical reaction to such a linking of “mountain” with a pile of papers and books does not seem very logical. Nevertheless with time and imagination, the conflict of interpretations – one literal and the other metaphorical – allows for new shades of meaning to present themselves, 62. Cf. T.D. WITHERINGTON, Praying in the Breach: Worshipping through the End of Metaphysics, in Horizons 45 (2018) 317-346. See also P. RICŒUR, The Rule of Metaphor: The Creation of Meaning in Language, London, Routledge, 2003.

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shades which have been dormantly hidden in the given reality, ready to be unlocked by a creative and imaginative use of language. Such a process takes a good deal of patience, and the eventual horizons of meaning which are opened come as a graced gift to those involved. During the anamnesis we ritually remember the gift received once-for-all which has become sacramentally present and accessible here and now. This then opens onto a possible future where we, through the offering of our return gift, open the horizon of God’s ecclesially mediated offer of grace to as many as possible. It seems appropriate then, if we understand this moment of return-gift in terms of consisting of an initial moment of interruption which then leads to the creation of new metaphors through a conflict of interpretations. This “conflict” is always to be accompanied by common prayer and worship with all parties involved, it is ultimately through this process of wrestling with and praying through difference that new shades of meaning may present themselves as a graced gift. In this way we can connect the memorial recounted in the anamnesis not only to the future return-gift of ethical witness and service, but we may understand this ethical witness and service in terms of an encounter with concrete others which leads to the emergence of new shades of meaning – without doing violence either to our Christian particularity, or to the other in his/her irreducible alterity. VI. THE ECUMENICAL RELEVANCE AND POTENTIAL OF THOSE INSIGHTS “AD INTRA” AND “AD EXTRA” In conclusion I would like to refer these considerations back to the question of ecumenism, particularly as recounted in the sections of FCTC which we have already discussed. Recalling the controversy regarding the understanding of the Mass as a sacrifice which has been resolved through a re-discovery of a proper sense of anamnesis in both the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches, such an understanding of the nature of the future memorial, the return gift of ethical witness and service, seems as if it would only further strengthen such a resolution. For if, indeed, the sacrifice offered refers not only to the once-for-all offering of Jesus on the cross but to the present sacramental mediation of this sacrifice which then calls for the return offering of ourselves as a living sacrifice, the understanding of this return-offering in terms of interruption leading to metaphorical unveiling of new shades of meaning further colors it in terms which have direct implications, not only for the dialogue between the church(es) and the world, but also between the churches themselves.

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When it comes to understanding the relationship between the church(es) and the world, FCTC does not provide us with a clear program, rather, it provides certain clues as to how it presupposes such an encounter would look like. One notes, I would argue, a rather disappointing lack of positivity and openness to the contemporary world when one considers what FCTC has to say about individuals marked by pluralization, secularization, and the rise of religious indifference in secularized societies. Such a lack of positivity and openness is seen, arguably, in the five challenges to ecumenical work in our contemporary world as identified in FCTC, namely, 1) the globalization of Christianity into the global South, 2) the difficulty of passing on the faith in a secularized western context, 3) a situation where church and culture are no longer as homogenous as they have been in the past, 4) the worldwide rise in Pentecostal and charismatic churches, and 5) the rise of religious pluralism in previously confessionally-homogenous lands63. These challenges should themselves provide a greater sense of urgency to ecumenical work insofar as “the animosity of confessional options harms Christian credibility”, particularly in such a context64. Indeed, after having noted these challenges, the majority of the rest of the document provides a narrative of the progress made in CatholicLutheran dialogue on all of the theological issues which have historically divided the churches – the history of Luther and the Catholic response, justification, Eucharist, ministry, and, finally, the relationship between Scripture and Tradition. In the course of this discussion, even though it notes the areas of divergence between the two churches65, one can be forgiven for sensing an over-arching sense of optimism that the theological consensus between the two churches out-weighs areas of divergence66. Such a theological consensus should be continually expanded so as to assist the Church in her credibility in a contemporary context which is seen more as an object of proselytization that as a dialogue partner. 63. Cf. From Conflict to Communion (n. 2), §§ 10-15. 64. Ibid., § 15. 65. See, for example, the discussion of the different understanding of ministry: From Conflict to Communion (n. 2), §§ 187-194. Nevertheless, the discussion ends on a positive note: “Thus, the office of ministry presents both considerable obstacles to common understanding and also hopeful perspectives for rapprochement” (ibid., § 194). 66. This to the point that in the discussion of the Eucharist, it notes that “Lutherans and Catholics can together affirm the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Lord’s Supper”, by making use of a common statement which “affirms all the essential elements of faith in the Eucharistic presence of Jesus Christ without adopting the terminology of transubstantiation” (From Conflict to Communion [n. 2], § 154).

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It is rather disappointing that there is never any return to these five challenges to contemporary ecumenical work later in the document, particularly as to how the churches through their ecumenical work could perhaps come to address them. While one can, again, note that this document is intended as a celebratory and commemorative text, and that the rather optimistic tone therein is justified given this fact, by failing to adequately return to the contextual issues and challenges FCTC risks creating an unfortunate caricature. This caricature would be, it seems, of a small, inward facing celebration where both parties can congratulate each other on previous ecumenical progress and make amends for previous acts of violence, all the while as the “secular world” goes on its own merry way, increasingly oblivious to what the churches are engaged in or what they have to offer the contemporary context. It should, however, be noted that in elaborating “Five Ecumenical Imperatives” toward the end of the document, FCTC comes close to returning to the five challenges when it turns to questions of joint witness and evangelization – though it still does this rather disappointingly. Concretely, the fourth imperative notes that members of both churches “should jointly rediscover the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ for our time”, and the fifth states that “Catholics and Lutherans should witness together to the mercy of God in proclamation and service to the world”67. Ecumenical dialogue, ultimately, has a “missionary task” that calls for a “rethinking and metanoia” which will only “become greater the more pluralistic our societies become with respect to religion”68. What this amounts to, again however, is a going out and talking to the world rather than with it: the challenges, particularly the challenge of the “secular” or “secularization” (which remains undefined) is disappointingly seen as something to be addressed by means of missionary activity rather than through dialogue. It is precisely at this juncture, I would argue, that a deepening and coloring of the sense of anamnesis in the way we have here suggested can help to reframe the encounter with the “secular” or “worldly” other in a way that it does not come across as being understood purely in terms of a proselytizing talking to rather than an interruptive talking-with which then leads to the prayerful and discerning emergence of new shades of meaning. The relocation of this discerning and prayerful sitting with and through conflicts of meaning and interpretation to the moment of the Church’s offering in the anamnesis furthermore imbues it with an 67. Ibid., §§ 243-245. 68. Ibid., § 243.

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important theological significance: conflicts of interpretation are an ever-present reality when the Church interacts with the world, and, therefore, an intrinsic and constituting element in the Church’s return offering memorialized in the anamnesis. Until the moment of eschatological fulfilment, we are to never cease from the process of encountering others as we have here described it, confident that even the sharpest of differences will be worked through with patience, in prayer, oriented eschatologically. It goes without saying that such a framework can be applied to the ecumenical dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches as well. The many and praiseworthy areas of ecumenical convergence between the two churches notwithstanding, in other areas – notably in areas pertaining to gender, sexuality, and who is allowed access to ordination – the churches remain significantly divided. If ecumenical dialogue is to progress through these admittedly thorny issues, there is an urgent need to develop a method of doing this which allows these serious areas of divergence to be patiently and discerningly prayed through. Rather than skirting around these issues, or ignoring them in order to focus on other – albeit important – areas of ecumenical convergence, if the dream of full communion between the churches is ever to be realized, one must envision a way that these issues can be discussed and prayed through in openness, honesty, and imaginative boldness. Certainly, such an idea presupposes that both churches are committed to the emergence of new possible shades of meaning to realities which are understood as open narratival concepts rather than as closed, predetermined metaphysical givens. While such an endeavor requires work in several domains, it is faithful to the idea of a Church which is semper reformanda and, therefore, always seeking new and sometimes surprising means of fides quarens intellectum. Marquette University Alumni Memorial Union, 236 P.O. Box 1881 Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881 USA [email protected]

T. Derrick WITHERINGTON

III DEMOCRATISATION AND LEADERSHIP STRUCTURES IN THE CHURCH

PRIESTS, PRESBYTERS, AND THE PRIESTHOOD OF ALL BELIEVERS REFLECTIONS ON THE REFORMATION, LAY AUTHORITY, AND DEMOCRATIZATION*

Did the Reformation contribute to the democratization of the Church, or indeed society? This paper explores this question by considering not only the Reformers’ views on the role of laity in the Church, but also the ways in which these played out in practice. The first, main, part focuses on Luther’s doctrine of the shared priesthood of all believers and its implications and out-working in a sample of German Lutheran contexts in the sixteenth century. There is a tendency amongst some contemporary evangelical Christians – that is contemporary to us, now – to understand the priesthood of all believers in quite an anti-clerical way, as implying that all believers can and should be authorised to take all roles in the local Church1. In what follows, I shall show that this was not Luther’s intention when he defined the doctrine of the shared priesthood of all believers. Rather, Luther’s appeal to lay authority, despite his claim to speak to the whole of society, gave a privileged position to certain members of the laity, although a wider range of lay people certainly continued to be involved in the running of parishes. The essay then turns, more briefly, to Reformed ecclesiology, which gave a more formal involvement to lay

* My research was much helped by a Senior Fellowship to the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel which allowed me not only to access the resources of that wonderful library, but also to discuss my ideas with colleagues including Bob Kolb, Marjorie E. Plummer and Benjamin A. Miller; I am most grateful for their thoughts, and for the input of Judith Becker, John McCallum, Alec Ryrie and Scott Spurlock, all of which has enriched my work. 1. See for instance the sermon by “Emily, a Quaker”, 27 October 2012: “This is Protestantism 101: that the Gospel and the sacraments can be offered not just by men in robes or collars, but by men and women and children in jeans and sneakers, with loaves of bread in their hands and the light of the glory of God in their hearts”; online at https:// jesusscribbles.wordpress.com/2012/10/27/sermon-priesthood-of-all-believers-1-peter-292-corinthians-41-6/. Similarly, Timothy George comments that in the Baptist tradition in which he grew up, “it became common in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries to speak of the “priesthood of the believer”: T. GEORGE, The Priesthood of All Believers, First Things blog, 31.10.2016; online at: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/ 2016/10/the-priesthood-of-all-believers.

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people – or at least to lay men2 – as elders and deacons, but also as members of congregations. It concludes that neither approach can accurately be described as democratization. Nonetheless, a broad spectrum of lay people did feel empowered by the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers and by an ecclesiology which emphasised the importance of lay involvement, although this sense of calling sometimes caused them to be treated as suspect by Church authorities. I. MARTIN LUTHER AND THE THEOLOGY OF THE PRIESTHOOD OF ALL BELIEVERS In 1520, Martin Luther proposed the doctrine that has come to be known as the priesthood of all believers3. In his treatise To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, he put forward a strong case that, amongst those who had been baptized, no difference should be made between the spiritual and the temporal state: It is pure invention that pope, bishop, priests, and monks are called the spiritual estate while princes, lords, artisans, and farmers are called the temporal estate … all Christians are truly of the spiritual estate, and there is no difference among them except that of office. Paul says in I Corinthians 12 that we are all one body, yet every member has its own work by which it serves the others. This is because we all have one baptism, one gospel, one faith, and are all Christians alike; for baptism, gospel, and faith alone make us spiritual and a Christian people4. 2. Both Judith Becker and John McCallum have confirmed that it is difficult, and often impossible, to establish who was meant by references to members of the congregation. Did such “members” include all adult men and women, men only, or solely male householders? It seems likely that in many contexts women were not included. However, local variations may have existed: thus Jamie Murdoch McDougall has established that in 1638, some Scottish parishes expected women explicitly to subscribe the Covenant, whilst in others it was sworn by both men and women, but subscribed (i.e. signed) only by men, and in still others women’s involvement is unclear. See J.M. MCDOUGALL, Covenants and Covenanters in Scotland 1638-1679, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Glasgow 2018, pp. 55-58. 3. For a recent discussion of Luther’s approach, drawing on a different selection of sources to those explored here, particularly Luther’s On the Freedom of the Christian, but coming to very similar conclusions, see V. LEPPIN, Priestertum aller Gläubigen: Amt und Ehrenamt in der lutherischen Kirche, in U. HECKEL – J. KAMPMANN – V. LEPPIN – C. SCHWÖBEL (eds.), Luther heute: Ausstrahlungen der Wittenberger Reformation, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2017, 149-169. Luther never used the term “priesthood of all believers”, and there is a strong reason to argue that on the basis of the 1520 treatises, Luther would have preferred the doctrine to be seen as the priesthood of all the baptized. However, by 1523, Luther had become sceptical as to whether all the baptized were actually believers. 4. M. LUTHER, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation [An den Christlichen Adel deutscher Nation], in J. PELIKAN – H.T. LEHMANN (eds.), Luther’s Works, Philadelphia PA, Concordia, 1955-1986 [hereafter LW], vol. 44, p. 127; WA 6, p. 407.

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For Luther all people, on the basis of their baptism, have the same status before God. His intention here was to emphasise that the clergy and those who had taken religious vows were not by virtue of their ordination or their vows better Christians, or closer to God or to salvation5. Rather, he asserted: There is no true, basic difference between laymen and priests, princes and bishops, between religious and secular, except for the sake of office and work, but not for the sake of status. They are all of the spiritual estate, all are truly priests, bishops, and popes. But they do not all have the same work to do6.

Luther was clearly not affirming that all people had the same calling. He did not believe that everyone is called to be a preacher in church. On the contrary, each person had their own calling, their own “office and work”, which they should undertake to the best of their ability. As Elaine Graham has pointed out: Luther’s understanding of human life as structured within three orders of relationship (politia, oeconomia, and ecclesia) establishes a variety of realms, albeit under divine governance, in which human beings are commanded to order their affairs. By implication, it means that the domains of government, state, household and economy, as well as that of the Church, must all be regarded as proper spheres of human flourishing and vocation7.

However, the three orders serve to structure the society correctly, not to bring about salvation. A person’s office or work in the context of these orders cannot, therefore, for Luther, give rise to a particular relationship with God or a particular claim to salvation, as he affirmed in his Lectures on Galatians: whatever a male does as a male, getting married, administering his household well, obeying the magistrate, maintaining honest and decent relations with others; or if a lady lives chastely, obeys her husband, takes good care of the house, and teaches her children well – these truly magnificent and outstanding gifts and works do not avail anything toward righteousness in the sight of God8.

5. Luther also wished to make the case that there should not be parallel legal systems for clergy and religious, under ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and for lay people, under the secular courts. However, this aspect of his argument is not relevant in the context of this paper. 6. LUTHER, To the Christian Nobility (n. 4), LW 44, p. 129; WA 6, p. 408. 7. E. GRAHAM, Luther’s Legacy: Rethinking the Theology of Lay Discipleship 500 Years after the Reformation, in Ecclesiology 13 (2017) 324-348, p. 324. 8. M. LUTHER, Lectures on Galatians [Galatervorlesung], LW 26, p. 355; WA 40/1, p. 543b (expounding Gal 3,28).

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For Luther, persons are saved on the basis of their faith, supported by their baptism, and mediated through their reception of the gospel. As Emmet McLaughlin observes, the doctrine of sola fide (faith alone) “cut Catholicism at its root. It also changed the function of the Catholic priest from one centred on the sacraments to one in which clergy were defined by the preaching of the Good News”9. The shared priesthood does, however, give all Christians a responsibility to engage with Scripture as the foundation of their faith and to share their insights. Luther rejected the idea that the institutions of the Church, and specifically the Roman hierarchy, should take responsibility for determining the correct interpretation of Scripture. Rather, this authority belonged to all believers: The Romanists want to be the only masters of Holy Scripture, although they never learn a thing from the Bible all their life long. They assume the sole authority for themselves. … If we are all priests, as was said above, and all have one faith, one gospel, one sacrament, why should we not also have the power to test and judge what is right or wrong in matters of faith? … We ought to march boldly forward and test all that they do, or leave undone, by our believing understanding of the Scriptures. … Therefore, it is the duty of every Christian to espouse the cause of the faith, to understand and defend it, and to denounce every error10.

Luther here articulated a view which would prove to be both a strength and a fundamental weakness of the Protestant Churches. On the one hand, he was adamant that all Christians should receive sufficient education to enable them to engage with and understand their faith, giving them enough knowledge to judge and denounce theological error. On the other hand, as Luther would soon discover – at the latest in his dispute with Huldrych Zwingli over the Eucharist, which hinged on the correct interpretation of Jesus’s words at the last Supper, rendered in Matt 26,28 as “Take, eat; this is my body” (or in the Vulgate, “accipite et comedite hoc est corpus meum”) – Reformers could disagree profoundly over the interpretation of Scripture. Luther’s focus on the individual’s responsibility to read Scripture and interpret it for themselves therefore raised significant questions about authority, specifically about who should identify correct over incorrect readings.

9. R.E. MCLAUGHLIN, The Making of the Protestant Pastor: The Theological Foundations of a Clerical Estate, in C.S. DIXON – L. SCHORN-SCHÜTTE (eds.), The Protestant Clergy of Early Modern Europe, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 60-78, p. 61. 10. LUTHER, To the Christian Nobility (n. 4), LW 44, pp. 133, 135; WA 6, pp. 411, 412.

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Luther’s own response to those questions focused in great part on education. If lay people were properly educated, he believed, they would recognise the true gospel and be able to identify error. His conviction that education was powerful can already be seen in his Ninety-Five Theses against Indulgences, printed in 1517: Christians should be taught that the pope does not at all intend that the purchase of indulgences should be understood as at all comparable with the works of mercy. Christians should be taught that one who gives to the poor, or lends to the needy, does a better action than if he purchases indulgences. Because, by works of love, love grows and a man becomes a better man; whereas, by indulgences, he does not become a better man, but only escapes certain penalties. Christians should be taught that he who sees a needy person, but passes him by although he gives money for indulgences, gains no benefit from the pope’s pardon, but only incurs the wrath of God. … Christians should be taught that, in granting indulgences, the pope has more need, and more desire, for devout prayer on his own behalf than for ready money11.

The Ninety-Five Theses raise questions about Luther’s true views of the papacy in 1517, and about his understanding of good works, but the point that I want to draw out for this essay is his conviction, even at this early stage of his Reforming career, that the education of all Christians is necessary and important. 1. Education and the Laity It is well known that the Reformers’ focus on education gave rise to a new emphasis on the importance of schools, and that both Lutheran and Reformed Church orders generally included a school order12. Reformation schools were intended to educate the whole population, and not only those destined for an ecclesiastical post. Despite their undoubted deficiencies, they clearly served to increase levels of literacy and the general level of education amongst lay people, particularly men, but to a certain extent also women. Schools, however, were not the only context in which Luther envisaged education taking place. The Church, and particularly Sunday services, were central to passing on the Gospel, as Luther emphasised in his Treatise on Good Works of 1521: 11. M. LUTHER, Ninety-Five Theses against Indulgences [Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum], theses 42-45, 48, LW 31, p. 29; WA 1, p. 235. 12. See, for instance, C. METHUEN, Education in the Reformation, in U. RUBLACK (ed.), Oxford Handbook of the Protestant Reformations, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017, 483-503, with further literature.

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[Sunday] is a necessity and is ordained by the Church for the sake of the imperfect laity and the working class so that they may also come [to hear] the Word of God13.

There was a contrast for Luther between the lives and spiritual discipline of lay people, who generally attended church just once each week, and the daily pattern of worship and Scripture reading experienced by the religious. Luther’s response was to suggest that the homes of the laity should also become places where the gospel was read and taught, and the ordering of the pious household under the paterfamilias, who was generally seen as responsible for ensuring that the members of the household prayed regularly, and the materfamilias, who might well teach the children as well as running the household, was an important aspect of shifting the locus of piety from the monasteries to the home. A married woman, in Luther’s eyes, had a ministry to her household, and particularly to her daughters: “a mother should teach her daughter and her family, because she has the Word and gives the Holy Spirit, so that [the daughter and family] might understand”14. This was part of the attempt to ensure that all lay people were offered – and, Luther expected, would seize – the opportunity to hear and respond to the gospel. 2. Laity and Hierarchy Despite the commitment of reformers such as Luther and Melanchthon to public education, Luther had a particular interest in attracting the interest of a specific group of laity: the nobility. In the preface to the Treatise on Good Works Luther reveals that he has been criticised for addressing his writings to lay people: Many people think little of me and say that I only write little pamphlets and sermons in German for the uneducated laity, I do not let that stop me. Would to God that in my lifetime I had, to my fullest ability, helped one layman to be better!15.

13. M. LUTHER, Treatise on Good Works [Von den guten Werken], LW 44, p. 72; WA 6, p. 243. 14. M. LUTHER, Predigt am Pfingstmontag (29. Mai 1531), WA 34/1, p. 483a: “tamen mater sol filiam et familiam leren, quia habet verbum et dedit spiritum sanctum, ut intelligat”. Compare Luther on Women: A Sourcebook, ed. and trans. S.C. KARANT-NUNN – M.E. WIESNER-HANKS, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 61 (translation amended in the light of the WA “a” text). 15. LUTHER, On Good Works (n. 13), LW 44, p. 22; WA 6, p. 203.

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Although on one level it refers to all lay people, this dedication letter was addressed to Duke John, brother and heir to Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, and it is likely that he and other princes were uppermost in Luther’s mind. After Frederick’s death in 1525, it would be John who as Elector would oversee the introduction of the Reformation into Ernestine Saxony. Although Luther’s Treatise on Good Works also appealed to lay people more generally, it was addressed to a layman who already bore considerable political authority as the ruler of part of electoral Saxony, and would soon bear more when he inherited the electorship. Volker Leppin sees Luther’s approach here as “a consistent application of the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers”, which reflect the particular social or civic responsibility of the individual princes16. Similarly, in To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, Luther’s points about the spiritual equality of lay people were made in the context of a clear appeal to the German nobility that they should act to reform the Church. Luther wrote: The time for silence is past, and the time to speak has come, as Ecclesiastes says. I am carrying out our intention to put together a few points on the matter of the reform of the Christian estate, to be laid before the Christian nobility of the German nation, in the hope that God may help his Church through the laity, since the clergy, to whom this task more properly belongs, have grown quite indifferent17.

Luther’s appeal to the German rulers of secular territories encouraged them to take responsibility for the Church in their lands, effectively acting in their own territories in the way that the bishops as rulers of the spiritual territories already acted in theirs. Luther’s encouragement came long after some of Germany’s secular rulers had begun to exercise authority over the churches. Natalie Krentz has shown that during the first decade of the sixteenth century, Frederick the Wise had already demonstrated his willingness to back Wittenberg’s town council against the interdict of the bishop, and indeed was frequently using the AllerHeiligen-Stift (All Saints Foundation), which he had established, to order Church life in the town18.

16. LEPPIN, Priestertum aller Gläubigen (n. 3), p. 159. 17. LUTHER, To the Christian Nobility (n. 4), LW 44, p. 123; WA 6, p. 404. 18. See N. KRENTZ, Ritualwandel und Deutungshoheit: Die frühe Reformation in der Residenzstadt Wittenberg (1500-1533) (Spätmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation, 74), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2014; summary in English: EAD., The Making of the Reformation: The Early Urban Reformation between Continuity and Change, in Reformation & Renaissance Review 19 (2017) 30-49.

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If the primary addressees of Luther’s ideas about laity were the nobility, another key group was the theologically educated laity, such as Philip Melanchthon. Melanchthon’s Loci communes (1521) was one of the most important texts for the codification of Lutheran teaching. Melanchthon had an enormous influence as a theological advisor to reforms, not only of the church but also of education, across the German territories, coming to be known, even in his lifetime, as the praeceptor Germaniae. Melanchthon was never ordained, although the Cranach altar in Wittenberg’s parish church nonetheless shows him baptising a baby. Melanchthon’s humanist and theological education equipped him as a layman to play a leading role in the Reformation. This indicates the difficulty of defining the term “lay person”. Melanchthon may not have been ordained, but as a highly educated theologian and philologist, he was one of Luther’s most valued colleagues. There is a real complexity in defining and distinguishing lay people. As Gustav Wingren has pointed, the modern understanding of lay as meaning either not-ordained or not-expert (as opposed to the expert or “Fachmann”), or both, also applies in the medieval and early modern periods19. Arguably, Luther’s interest in these writings centres on the highly educated or very well born and often powerful “laity” who were in a sense “Fachmann” – and therefore decidedly not laity – in their own field. What Luther is supporting here is scarcely a move towards democratization, but rather the church’s drawing on non-clerical expertise. 3. Lay People and the Selection and Appointment of Ministers Particularly in the early years of the Reformation, however, Luther did also recognise and affirm the role of laity, more broadly defined. In 1520, he suggested that a lay community choose one from amongst them to be a minister should the community be otherwise isolated from preaching and the sacraments: suppose a group of earnest Christian laymen were taken prisoner and set down in a desert without an episcopally ordained priest among them. And suppose they were to come to a common mind there and then in the desert and elect one of their number, whether he were married or not, and charge him to baptize, say mass, pronounce absolution, and preach the gospel. Such a man would be as truly a priest as though he had been ordained by all the bishops and popes in the world. That is why in cases of necessity anyone can baptize and give absolution. This would be impossible if we were not all priests20. 19. G. WINGREN, Der Begriff “Laie”, in H. SCHRÖER – G. MÜLLER (eds.), Vom Amt des Laien in Kirche und Theologie: Festschrift für Gerhard Krause zum 70. Geburtstag (Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann, 39), Berlin, De Gruyter, 1982, 3-16, p. 3. 20. LUTHER, To the Christian Nobility (n. 4), LW 44, p. 128; WA 6, pp. 407-408.

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Similarly, in his 1523 treatise Concerning the Ministry, Luther affirmed the right of all Christians to preach the Word of God if a competent preacher was not present: We have clearly shown that to each one is given the right of ministering in the Word, and indeed that he is commanded to do so if he sees that teachers are lacking or if those in office are not teaching correctly, as Paul affirmed in I Cor. 14, so that the power of God might be proclaimed by us all21.

Indeed, if no one else were available, Luther suggested, it might even be necessary for women to preach; however, he did not favour this practice, and was disconcerted that his teachings about freedom had led people to ask: “Should there be no distinctions between people, and should women also be priests?”22. Normal practice, however, should be that “one, or as many as the community chooses, shall be chosen or approved who, in the name of all with these rights, shall perform these functions [i.e. preaching, celebrating the sacraments and the other duties of ministry] publicly”23. Since this responsibility was delegated by the community, Luther also confirmed the right of a community to be involved in the election of its own minister, or at least to be consulted if the selection and appointment of the minister were delegated to others: How much more, then, does not a certain community as a whole have both right and command to commit by common vote [communibus suffragiis] such an office to one or more, to be exercised in its stead. With the approval of the community these might then delegate the office to others24.

Luther here laid the foundation for a close integration between the authority of city councils, superintendents and ministers which took shape in many Lutheran cities, not always without conflict25. For despite his language of a “common vote”, Luther seems, in keeping with his appeal to the German nobility to reform the Church, to have assumed the 21. M. LUTHER, Concerning the Ministry [De instituendis ministris ecclesiae], LW 40, p. 36; WA 12, p. 190. 22. M. LUTHER, [Erste] Epistel S. Petri gepredigt und außgelegt. Erste Bearbeitung, WA 12, p. 308. Compare C. METHUEN, “And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy!”: Luther, Reforming Women and the Construction of Authority, in Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 104 (2013) 82-109, at pp. 88, 91-92. 23. LUTHER, Concerning the Ministry (n. 21), LW 40, p. 34; WA 12, p. 189. 24. Ibid., LW 40, p. 36; WA 12, pp. 190-191. 25. See, for instance, L. SCHORN-SCHÜTTE, Evangelische Geistlichkeit der Frühneuzeit: Deren Anteil an der Entfaltung frühmoderner Staatlichkeit und Gesellschaft; dargestellt am Beispiel des Fürstentums Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, der Landgrafschaft HessenKassel und der Stadt Braunschweig, Gütersloh, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1996. For an example of how this relationship might play out in particularly antagonistic fashion, compare C. SOO PARK, Luthertum und Obrigkeit im Alten Reich in der Frühen Neuzeit. Dargestellt am Beispiel von Tilemann Heshusius (1527-1588), Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2016.

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existence of a Christian magistrate, or a Christian civic authority, which would take the lead in constituting the Church and selecting, calling and appointing ministers. That is, as Rolf Schläfer observes, for Luther “the call and ‘right ordination’ [rechte Weihe] to ministry – ‘apart and above the chrism’ – is issued by princes, lords, cities, bishops (not in their ordaining function, but as a result of their territorial authority), abbots, abbesses and other estates, that is by lay people”26. Here too, however, Luther’s emphasis is on those who, although they were not ordained, exercised authority in another sphere. For Luther the responsibilities of the authorities in calling pastors is an example of how closely the spheres of politia and ecclesia should ideally work together. In accordance with his doctrine on the two kingdoms, in a town or city it was the council to which “the property, honour, and life of the whole city have been committed”; the council was expected to “seek its welfare and improvement day and night with all the means at their command”27. Similarly, princes, lords or other territorial rulers, such as bishops, abbots or abbesses, were to seek the welfare of the land under their jurisdiction. This included both ensuring the appointment of suitable clergy, but also providing education, for education served only for the personal benefit of those being educated, but, more importantly, played an important role in shaping a society in which both the city or territory and its Church could flourish. Luther thus maintained that “a city’s best and greatest welfare, safety, and strength consist … in its having many able, learned, wise, honourable, and well-educated citizens”28. Lutheran Church orders, which generally included school orders, often manifested this deep conviction of the importance of education for all, including the reading of the Bible and catechesis. 4. Spiritual Freedom and Political Freedom This was not a general call for the democratization of society, however. Luther continued to be convinced that each person had their own place in society. In 1520, he had affirmed that “a cobbler, a smith, a 26. R. SCHÄFER, Allgemeines Priestertum oder Vollmacht durch Handauflegung? Zu Luthers Ordinationsauffassung im Brief an Johann Sutel in Göttingen, in SCHRÖER – MÜLLER (eds.), Vom Amt des Laien in Kirche und Theologie (n. 19), 141-167, at p. 165. Schäfer is particularly concerned to show the importance of chrism for Luther’s practice of ordination. 27. M. LUTHER, To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany That They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools [An die Ratherren aller Städte deutsches Lands, daß sie christliche Schulen aufrichten und halten sollen], LW 45, p. 36; WA 15, p. 34. 28. Ibid.

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peasant – each has the work and office of his trade”, and that “everyone must benefit and serve every other by means of his own work or office so that in this way many kinds of work may be done for the bodily and spiritual welfare of the community”29. His affirmation that despite their occupation, they were “all alike consecrated priests and bishops” was making the point that a priest or bishop who ceased to carry out the duties of his office would cease to be a priest or bishop, and become a layman once again: “a priest in Christendom is nothing else but an officeholder. As long as he holds office he takes precedence; where he is deposed, he is a peasant or a townsman like anybody else” 30. He emphasised this in 1522, remarking that he had been asked “Should there be no distinctions between people?” Luther’s answer was an emphatic “No!”31. Luther’s unease about affirming that his gospel of freedom might be heard as asserting the political freedom of lay people of the lower sort came to a head during the peasants’ war, or, more precisely, farmers’ uprisings in the mid-1520s, when he was alarmed by the way in which his theology was appropriated by this movement32. In 1525, writing Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants, Luther fulminated: It does not help the peasants when they pretend that according to Genesis 1 and 2 all things were created free and common, and that all of us alike have been baptized. For under the New Testament, … there stands our Master, Christ, and subjects us, along with our bodies and our property, to the emperor and the law of this world, … For baptism does not make men free in body and property, but in soul; and the gospel does not make goods common, except in the case of those who, of their own free will, do what the apostles and disciples did in Acts 433.

Spiritual freedom, for Luther, was distinct from political or civic freedom. Similarly, he affirmed that when women felt called to preach, this was a misunderstanding of the gospel34. As Jürgen Beyer has shown, however, 29. LUTHER, To the Christian Nobility (n. 4), LW 44, p. 130; WA 6, p. 409. 30. Ibid., LW 44, p. 129; WA 6, p. 408. 31. LUTHER, Epistel S. Petri gepredigt (n. 22), WA 12, p. 308. 32. Tom Scott is of the opinion that “the role of evangelical doctrines in stimulating and legitimising popular rebellion – above all in the German Peasants’ War – remains contentious”: blurb for T. SCOTT, The Early Reformation in Germany: Between Secular Impact and Radical Vision, Farnham, Ashgate, 2013 (online at: https://www.routledge. com/The-Early-Reformation-in-Germany-Between-Secular-Impact-and-Radical-Vision/ Scott/p/book/9781409468981). 33. M. LUTHER, Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants [Wider die räuberischen und mörderischen Rotten der Bauern], LW 46, p. 51; WA 18, pp. 358-359. 34. See further on this point, METHUEN, And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy! (n. 22), pp. 88-93. For women who nonetheless felt themselves called to preach, many of whom

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Luther’s stance, which shaped the ministerial ordering of the developing Lutheran Churches across Europe, did not prevent the emergence of lay prophets, both male and female35. These prophets were by definition not ordained; many seem also to have had little or no political power. Moreover, their relationship to Church hierarchy was often strained: whilst their message could sometimes be reinforced from parish pulpits, bishops, superintendents and theologians tended to write and preach against them36. Lutheran Churches – or at least Lutheran Church authorities – generally sought to restrict the preaching of the gospel to those who had been authorised to do so37. By 1539, Luther had come to be much more cautious in speaking of the role of the lay community. “There must be bishops, pastors, or preachers”, he emphasised, for “the people as a whole cannot do these things, but must entrust or have them entrusted to one person”38. He did not specify the way in which this process of “entrusting or having [public ministry] entrusted” to one person should take place, although he did assert that “the others should be content with this arrangement found themselves labelled “radical”, see the literature in note 37 below. 35. J. BEYER, Lay Prophets in Lutheran Europe (c. 1550-1700) (Brill’s Series in Church History and Religious Culture, 74), Leiden, Brill, 2017. 36. Ibid., pp. 84-88, 188-199. 37. There is not space here to discuss the influence of radical groups, which were widespread although often very small in number. However, it is clear that these were generally lay led, and that they often emerged out of frustration with the restrictions on lay preaching in the magisterial Churches. See, for instance, G.H. WILLIAMS, The Radical Reformation, Kirksville, MO, Sixteenth Century Journal, 31992, especially pp. 1289, 1298-1299, 1305-1306; C.-P. CLASEN, Anabaptism: A Social History, 1525-1618 – Switzerland, Austria, Moravia, South and Central Germany, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1972, especially pp. 51-62, 78-81. H.-J. GOERTZ, regards anticlericalism as key to understanding the anabaptists and other radical groups: The Anabaptists, London, Routledge, 1996, pp. 36-67. K. HILL points to the relatively unimportant roles of leaders and preachers in the central German anabaptist movement: Baptism, Brotherhood, and Belief in Reformation Germany: Anabaptism and Lutheranism, 1525-1585, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015, especially pp. 50-56, 68. Radical movements seem to have offered some opportunities also to women who felt called to preach, often on the basis of their understanding of the priesthood of all believers: see for instance the introduction to M. VAN VEEN – P. VISSER – G.K. WAITE – E. KLOEK – M. KOBELT-GROCH – A. VOOLSTRA, Sisters: Myth and Reality of Anabaptist, Mennonite, and Doopsgezind Women ca. 15251900, Leiden, Brill, 2014, pp. 1-14, at p. 2; the introduction to S. BROWN (ed.), Women, Gender and Radical Religion in Early Modern Europe, Leiden, Brill, 2007, pp. 1-14, at pp. 8-10; M. KOBELT-GROCH, Aufsässige Töchter Gottes: Frauen im Bauernkrieg und in den Täuferbewegungen, Frankfurt a.M., Campus-Verlag, 1993, pp. 24-33, 154-160; and, for a cautious survey of the literature, S. HAUDE, Gender Roles and Perspectives among Anabaptist and Spiritualist Groups, in J.D. ROTH – J.M. STAYER, A Companion to Anabaptism and Spiritualism, 1521-1700 (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 6), Leiden, Brill, 2007, 425-465. 38. M. LUTHER, On the Councils and the Church [Von den Konziliis und Kirchen], LW 41, p. 154; WA 50 pp. 632-633.

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and agree to it”39. Luther here arguably reflects the position he had already articulated in Concerning the Ministry which also found expression in the Confessio Augustana (1530). Here the Church was defined as “the congregation of saints, in which the gospel is rightly taught and the sacraments are rightly administered” (art. 7). The CA does not have much more to say about the “congregation of the saints” – by which the community of all believers is meant – but it does specify that “no one should publicly teach in the church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called” (art. 14). The 1557 Church Order of Albertine Saxony stipulated that “town pastors should be elected by the council and the Gemeinde [which meant both congregation and community], and sent and presented to the superintendent”; the superintendent then examined the candidate and sent him back to the council, who examined him again and ordained him40. Such processes for such “regular calling” did not lead to an ontological understanding of ordination in the Catholic, medieval sense, but did delegate Luther’s original vision of the priesthood shared by all believers, lay or ordained, to a representative minister, and focus the decision as to his eligibility on a representative group. Lay authorities shared responsibility for the reform and proper administration of the Church, in imperial cities and other self-governing towns through the relationships between town and city councils and pastors and superintendents, and in many territories through the person of the local prince and his role as “Notbischof”41, which oversaw the Church through structures such as Württemberg’s “Kirchenrat”. Developed from the territory’s post-Reformation visitation committees, this consisted of four laymen (politici), including a lawyer, and three (from 1569 four) theologians (theologici), including the Probst of Stuttgart’s Stiftskirche; it was presided over by the Duke and managed pastors, schools and related finances42. Lay people were also closely involved in the oversight of the Church through on-going practices of patronage, which remain under-researched. That is, lay people who were officially involved in the shaping of Church structures in Lutheran contexts often had significant authority in the civic sphere. 39. Ibid., LW 41, p. 154; WA 50, p. 633. 40. E. SEHLING (ed.), Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des XVI. Jahrhunderts. Bd. I: Sachsen und Thüringen nebst angrenzenden Gebieten. 1: Die Ordnungen Luthers: Die Ernestinischen und Albertinischen Gebiete, Tübingen, Mohr, 1979 (reprint of edition published Leipzig, 1902), pp. 322-323. 41. See, still, L.W. SPITZ, Luther’s Ecclesiology and His Concept of the Prince as Notbischof, in Church History 22 (1953) 113-141. 42. S. AREND, Innenansichten aus dem württembergischen Kirchenrat und die Beziehungen zwischen Württemberg und Henneberg im 16. Jahrhundert, in Zeitschrift für württembergische Landesgeschichte 71 (2012) 183-211, at pp. 186, 187, 189.

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5. Lay Engagement in Parish Life Many of Luther’s followers retained from his teachings a strong sense that as individuals they were called and empowered to speak out for the gospel. Chang Soo Park has shown that Luther’s theology of the common priesthood of believers frequently informed arguments made in the context of political conflicts, drawing on what was understood to be Luther’s ideals of freedom and equality43. Locally, moreover, in congregations, it is likely that, as Erwin Gatz has asserted for the German post-Tridentine Catholic context, both men and women “continued to be conscious that they shared responsibility for both Christianity and society”44. Enno Bünz observes that “both congregations as a whole and individual believers were engaged in the parish in a multiplicity of ways and had gained certain rights of participation”45. However, the role of lay people – other than princes, members of city councils and patrons, who were often local nobility – in post-Reformation congregations is not always easy to discern. Studies of the pre- and post-Reformation Church in England by Eamon Duffy, Christopher Haigh and Daniel C. Beaver have highlighted the role played by churchwardens in the running of the parish, both for the day-to-day organisation of Church life and in the exercise of Church discipline46. Similarly, Hans-Georg Aschoff points 43. C. SOO PARK, Das Prinzip des allgemeinen Priestertums, ein politisches Konzept?, in Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 105 (2014) 129-158, especially pp. 156-157. 44. E. GATZ, Zur kirchliche Stellung der Laien im Zeitalter der Aufklärung, in ID. (ed.), Geschichte des kirchlichen Lebens in den deutschsprachigen Ländern seit dem Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts – Die katholische Kirche. Vol. 8: Laien in der Kirche, Basel, Herder, 2008, 53-70, at p. 53. In doing so, they were drawing on a burgeoning tradition of lay piety, which was modified by the Reformation, but did not disappear. See for the extraordinary span of late medieval piety (amongst many others): K. SCHREINER (ed.), Laienfrömmigkeit im späten Mittelalter: Formen, Funktionen, politisch-soziale Zusammenhänge, München, Oldenbourg, 1992; B. HAMM, Religiosität im späten Mittelalter: Spannungspole, Neuaufbrüche, Normierungen, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2011; E. BÜNZ – H. KÜHNE, Alltag und Frömmigkeit am Vorabend der Reformation in Mitteldeutschland: Wissenschaftlicher Begleitband zur Ausstellung “Umsonst ist der Tod”, Leipzig, Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2015. For the striking continuities in pious practice and Church engagement between late-medieval and Reformation Görlitz, see C. SPEER, Frömmigkeit und Politik: Städtische Eliten in Görlitz zwischen 1300 und 1550, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 2011. 45. E. BÜNZ, Pfarreien und Pfarrgemeinden im spätmittelalterlichen Deutschland, in M.C. FERRARI – B. KÜMIN (eds.), Pfarreien in der Vormoderne: Identität und Kultur im Niederkirchenwesen Europas, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 2017, 25-59, p. 42. 46. For English churchwardens and their role in integrating church life and village society, see E. DUFFY, The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2001, pp. 24-32, 191-199; for examples of wardens’ involvement in disciplinary cases, C. HAIGH, The Clergy and Parish Discipline in England, 1570-1640, in B. HEAL – O.P. GRELL (eds.), The Impact of the European

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out that in the German-speaking lands the responsibility for the administration of a church’s building and other assets frequently lay in the hands of lay people47. Karl Schnapp’s study of Bamberg shows that the lay responsibility in the form of “Kirchenpflegeschaft” was related to the legal status of congregations and that the Laienpflegeamt existed in both urban and rural congregations48. By the turn of the sixteenth century, two Pfleger – wardens – were generally appointed and appointees need not be either a member of the council or a magistrate, although they often were49. By the sixteenth century, the wardens of Bamberg’s churches seem to have been appointed by the town council50. These structures probably did not undergo significant change in areas where the Reformation was introduced. Scott Dixon notes for Ansbach that parishes were expected by 1536 to have a common chest and that this and the church buildings “were managed at the local level by laymen – the churchwardens – as had been the case before the Reformation”51. Wardens answered to Ansbach’s visitation committee, in an audit intended to prevent the wardens from using the funds to support their own interests52; however, a late seventeenth century survey of churches in Lutheran Norway found that parish incomes were so low that churchwardens often had to fund repairs, bread, wine and candles themselves or through funds loaned to the parish53. It is not always clear how churchwardens were appointed: in Augsburg, they were elected54; elsewhere, as in Bamberg, the local town council may have had a say. They are likely to have been local,

Reformation: Princes, Clergy and People, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2008, 125-141, at pp. 129131. D.C. BEAVER, Parish Communities and Religious Conflict in the Vale of Gloucester, 1590-1690, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1998, offers many examples of English churchwardens’ involvement in such cases. 47. H.-G. ASCHOFF, Stütze der Gemeinde und Brücke in die Gesellschaft: Katholische Laien in der norddeutschen Diaspora im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, in Historisches Jahrbuch 130 (2010) 125-156, at p. 129. 48. K. SCHNAPP, Stadtgemeinde und Kirchengemeinde in Bamberg: Vom Spätmittelalter bis zum kirchlichen Absolutismus, Bamberg, Stadtarchiv, 1999, pp. 50, 51. 49. Ibid., pp. 57, 59-60. 50. Ibid., pp. 63-64. 51. C.S. DIXON, The Reformation and Rural Society: The Parishes of Brandenburg-Ansbach-Kulmbach, 1528-1603, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 90. German terms for the role of churchwarden included Heiligenpfleger, Gotteshausmeister and Zechpfleger. 52. Ibid., p. 98. 53. Ø. EKROLL, State Church and Church State: Churches and Their Interiors in Post-Reformation Norway, 1537-1705, in A. SPICER (ed.), Lutheran Churches in Early Modern Europe, Farnham, Ashgate, 2012, 277-309, at pp. 277-278. 54. E.F. GRAY, Lutheran Churches and Confessional Competition in Augsburg, in SPICER (ed.), Lutheran Churches in Early Modern Europe (n. 53), 39-62, at p. 44.

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residing in, or having a close link to, the parish55. As Beaver puts it in the English case, “Churchwardens were neighbo[u]rs authorized to present violations of ecclesiastical law”56, but in Augsburg the wardens were instrumental in the appointment of evangelical preachers to the parishes of Holy Cross and St Georg57. References to vergers and sextons, to Küster, Vorsteher and to the parish office of Probst can be found in archival records. These posts, probably unlike that of churchwarden, were paid, and the vast majority of those who held them will have been from the local community 58. Some Church orders laid down procedures for the “supervision, selection and examination” of “church servants” – Kirchendiener – including both sextons and schoolmasters59; whilst teachers were more likely to come from outside the community, most sextons must have been local, and sometimes these roles were combined. They were clearly key figures in parish life, and the holders of such an office could prove a source of dissention. Thus, Dixon records a controversy in which a more evangelical sexton who disapproved of sacramentals challenged the (Catholic) priest who desired him to fetch salt to be blessed; a case in which the pastor protested at his sexton’s rudeness to him; an incident in which a village elite installed a new sexton without involving the local pastor; and an accusation of witchcraft arising from a sexton’s selling nails drawn from a newly buried coffin60. In all these instances it is clear that the sexton involved was a significant figure in the local community. Dixon’s study of the relationship between parish churches and pastors and local (lay) communities focuses largely on the existence of tension or discord between the pastor and the parish, highlighting the impediments to Lutheran discipline, such as attempts to regulate

55. Complementing Duffy’s findings, Arjan Nobel finds for the Dutch situation that “the churchwardenship was a parish job and remained one”: A. NOBEL, “Which of Them Do Belong to the Parish or Not”: The Changing Rural Parish in the Dutch Republic after the Reformation, in A. SPICER (ed.), Parish Churches in the Early Modern World, Farnham, Ashgate, 2016, 179-198, at p. 188. However, SCHNAPP indicates that in fifteenth-century Bamberg a church’s wardens did not always live in the parish: Stadtgemeinde und Kirchengemeinde (n. 48), p. 62. 56. BEAVER, Parish Communities and Religious Conflict (n. 46), p. 59. 57. GRAY, Lutheran Churches and Confessional Competition (n. 54), pp. 44-45. 58. It seems probable that vergers and sextons were generally men; the case for churchwardens may have been different. Certainly, Duffy’s list of post-Reformation wardens in Morebath includes several women: DUFFY, The Voices of Morebath (n. 46), pp. 194-199. Here too further research is needed into the various German contexts. 59. DIXON, The Reformation and Rural Society (n. 51), p. 59. 60. Ibid., pp. 25-26, 82, 137, 184.

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the extent of wedding celebrations61. Dixon concludes that “the very men responsible for the execution of disciplinary measures at the local level presented active, and frequently successful, resistance to the local agents of Lutheran reform, the parish pastors”62. Jay Goodale comments that in Saxony, village clergy were “literally outsiders since they rarely came from the place where they were ministering”63; “they might infringe local norms, for instance by using different liturgical practices from those which villagers expected; they were certainly better educated; and their expectations of the pastor’s role often differed from the villagers”64. Similarly, Susan Karant-Nunn suggests that “the pastor, that wielder of confession and excommunication (or, in Calvinist lands, of consistorial interrogation and excommunication), was often the other”65. However, conflict is much more likely to leave an archival paper trail, and there must have been many parishes where the relationship between pastor and village council was (at least relatively) harmonious, and where the life of the parish and the life of the local community were closely integrated; that is, as Karant-Nunn observes, “that some peasant communities admired their pastors and lived harmoniously with them goes without saying”66, even though she fears that the mechanisms of such harmony were suspect: “authorities … imposed their officials as overseers and enforcers, and … gradually turned peasant mayors and guild officers into bearers of the new standard”67. Nevertheless, through the offices of churchwarden, verger and sexton, lay people would in many communities have been drawn into the day-to-day affairs of the church and shared responsibility for its orderly running. It would be enlightening to know who in these parish churches cleaned the church, prepared for services, washed the linen, purchased and tended lights, and undertook general maintenance. In Germany, as in England, those who undertook these tasks were probably overseen by the wardens in conjunction with a verger or sexton.

61. Ibid., pp. 128-142. 62. Ibid., p. 142. 63. J. GOODALE, Pfarrer als Außenseiter: Landpfarrer und religiöses Leben in Sachsen zur Reformationszeit, in Historische Anthropologie 7 (1999) 191-211, at p. 195. 64. Ibid., pp. 195-201, 201-202, 203-206. 65. S.C. KARANT-NUNN, Popular Culture as Religious Dissent in the Post-Reformation Era, in H.-J. GOERTZ – J.M. STAYER (eds.), Radikalität und Dissent im 16. Jahrhundert – Radicalism and Dissent in the Sixteenth Century (Zeitschrift für historische Forschung, Beiheft 27), Berlin, Duncker and Humblot, 2002, 189-202, p. 194. 66. Ibid., p. 195. 67. Ibid., p. 193.

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6. Conclusion In her study of Jean Gerson’s approach to the relationship between pastor and laity, Catherine Brown concludes that for Gerson a hierarchical order pertains: “in the Church the laity is in subjection to the clergy and can move along the road to perfection only by means of clerical and sacramental assistance”68. Luther’s theology of the priesthood of all believers on the one hand sought to remove the mediation of clergy from the relationship between God and the individual. Justification is by faith, and not through the Church and its ministers. The preaching of the Word and the celebration of the sacraments were nonetheless fundamental to Luther’s understanding of the Church; they were the responsibility of pastors who were entrusted – by or on behalf of the community – with these tasks, which defined the main locus of teaching about grace. On the other hand, Luther remained convinced that hierarchy was necessary. People might be able to come to faith even without the intervention of the Church, but if they did – which Luther increasingly came to believe was unlikely –, the world in which they existed was structured in a profoundly hierarchical way which defined how they were able to live out God’s calling to them. Luther’s greatest interest in lay people was in the nobility, who had the most power to support the Church. Luther’s doctrine of the priesthood of all believers was not an advocation of the democratization of Church or society, but of the spiritual equality of all people before God. Nonetheless, this theology proved profoundly empowering to many of Luther’s followers, lay men and women alike. II. LAY INVOLVEMENT IN THE REFORMED TRADITION If Luther’s understanding of the place of lay people in the ordering of the Church was ambiguous, Calvin took a more formalised approach, explicitly integrating lay people – or more specifically lay men – into his definition of the fourfold ministry as defined in the Ecclesiastical Ordinances drawn up for Geneva in 1541, and further expended in the Institutes69. The ministry, for Calvin, was made up of teachers, who were 68. D.C. BROWN, Pastor and Laity in the Theology of Jean Gerson, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 253. 69. See E.A. MCKEE, The Pastoral Ministry and Worship in Calvin’s Geneva, Geneva, Droz, 2016, pp. 28-31; J.E. OLSON, Church and Society: Calvin’s Theology and Its Early Reception, in J.T. BILLINGS – I.J. HESSELINK (eds.), Calvin’s Theology and Its Reception: Disputes, Developments, and New Possibilities, Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox, 2012, 193-215, especially pp. 202-206.

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responsible for “Scriptural interpretation – to keep doctrine whole and pure among believers”70; pastors or preachers, properly nominated, who undertook preaching, discipline, and the administration of sacraments, and who issued admonitions and exhortations71; elders or seniors, who assisted with discipline, following the early Church model of presbyters “chosen from the people, who were charged with the censure of morals and the exercise of discipline alongside the bishops”, for at that time, thought Calvin, “each Church had … a senate, chosen from godly, grave, and holy men” who assisted with discipline72; and finally deacons who were to administer alms, and care for the poor and the sick73. Discipline in the Genevan Church was exercised by the consistory, made up of pastors and elders74. Pastors were to be appointed with the approval of the congregation, not simply by direct vote of the congregation. Calvin emphasised that in order “to be considered a true minister of the Church” a candidate “must first have been duly called, then he must respond to his calling, that is, he must undertake and carry out the tasks enjoined”75. A minister’s call was “lawful according to the Word of God”, Calvin held, “when those who seemed fit are elected by the consent and approval of the people”; however, the congregation might not act alone: “other pastors ought to preside over the election in order that the multitude may not go wrong either through fickleness, through evil intentions, or through disorder”76. John Crawford suggests that Calvin intended elders and deacons to be elected by the people, but that Geneva’s Council refused to allow this, so that both orders were appointed by the Little Council77. 70. J. CALVIN, Institutes of the Christian Religion IV.3.4; English translation, ed. J.T. MCNEILL, trans. F.L. BATTLES (Library of Christian Classics, 21), London, SCM, 1961 [hereafter LCC 21], p. 1057. 71. CALVIN, Institutes IV.3.6; LCC 21, pp. 1058-1059. 72. CALVIN, Institutes IV.3.8; LCC 21, p. 1061. 73. CALVIN, Institutes IV.3.9; LCC 21, pp. 1061-1062. 74. For the constitution of the consistory, see W.G. NAPHY, Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation, Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox, 22003, pp. 75-78. For its operation, see R.M. KINGDON – T.A. LAMBERT, Reforming Geneva: Discipline, Faith and Anger in Calvin’s Geneva, Geneva, Droz, 2012, pp. 17-24. 75. CALVIN, Institutes IV.3.10; LCC 21, p. 1062. 76. CALVIN, Institutes IV.3.15; LCC 21, p. 1066. 77. J.R. CRAWFORD, Calvin and the Priesthood of All Believers, in Scottish Journal of Theology 21 (1968) 145-156, at p. 153. The men included magisterial members drawn from the Syndic and the Senate, who served short terms of office (at the most three years); however, eight elders served for longer periods of six, seven or more years. These men “were from backgrounds which meant they were out of power and likely to remain so”. For Naphy, this is an indication of the initial tendency of Geneva’s leaders to underestimate the potential power of the Consistory: NAPHY, Calvin and the Genevan Reformation (n. 74), pp. 77-78. In France, in contrast to Geneva, congregations did play a role in electing or appointing their elders and deacons (CRAWFORD, Calvin and the Priesthood of All Believers, pp. 153-154), and this was also the case in Scotland, as discussed below.

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Nonetheless, some form of congregational involvement in both the appointment of pastors and the exercise of Church discipline became a defining aspect of the Reformed tradition. Thus in Basel, as Amy Nelson Burnett has shown, the leaders of the Church introduced a series of measures to supplement the original Reformation ordinance, and a number of these defined and regulated lay ministries intended to support the exercise of discipline in the parishes. Bannherren were appointed in each parish and worked with the pastors and, ultimately, the magistrates on disciplinary cases78. For Crawford, “Calvin’s provision of the Consistoire, made up of all the pastors and elders, gave the ‘laity’ a real share in regulating the life of the Church”79. Reformed ecclesiology assumed that lay people should share in shaping the life of the local congregation, although in practice this took various forms. In particular, how lay people were involved in the life of the Church and in the exercise of discipline, and what responsibilities they had in the selection and appointment of minister, elders and deacons, varied. 1. The Church Orders and Practice of Johannes a Lasco Judith Becker argues that the Forma ac ratio, the Church order drafted by Johannes a Lasco, envisaged a relationship of “reciprocity” within the congregation, according to which ministers and members of the congregation bore mutual obligations to each other”80. This expressed itself in the election of officeholders at all levels: superintendents, pastors, elders and deacons were all to be nominated and voted for by the (male) members of the congregation, with existing superintendent, pastors and other officeholders exercising a deciding vote; once the name of the elected candidate was published, the congregation had a week to articulate any theological concerns. Finally, in the case of the strangers’ Church in London, those elected superintendent (who had to be elected by all the relevant parishes) or pastor were then presented to the King Edward VI for their appointment to be confirmed81. A Lasco envisaged that the whole congregation would be involved in the election: members were expected to put forward suitable names, and they had “active voting 78. A.N. BURNETT, Basel’s Long Reformation: Church Ordinances and the Shaping of Religious Culture in the Sixteenth Century, in Zwingliana 35 (2008) 145-159, at p. 149. 79. CRAWFORD, Calvin and the Priesthood of All Believers (n. 77), p. 153. 80. J. BECKER, Gemeindeordnung und Kirchenzucht: Johannes a Lascos Kirchenordnung für London (1555) und die reformierte Konfessionsbildung, Leiden, Brill, 2007, p. 85. 81. Ibid., pp. 87-90.

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rights, not only a right of veto”82. Moreover, all officeholders were to be examined regularly. The involvement of the laity in such examinations focused on the officeholders’ theology, their teaching and their way of life; points of criticism in these areas could be raised by members of the congregation83. Similarly, Church discipline was the responsibility of the whole congregation for the whole congregation84. In practice, however, Becker has shown, both Church discipline and lay involvement in the election of officeholders varied. In Emden, a Lasco established a Church council (Kirchenrat), which was responsible for Church discipline and the day-to-day running of the Church. This was made up of three preachers and four lay people, who initially were chosen by the Graf of Ostfriesland, although later they were elected by the congregation as a Lasco had originally envisaged85. In Emden, however, the pastor was not elected but appointed by the Graf and the town’s secular authorities in consultation with the Church council, whilst elders and deacons were either elected by the congregation or nominated by the other officeholders86. The Dutch congregation in London began by involving the whole (male) congregation in the election of elders and deacons, but by 1569, on the instruction of the Bishop of London, officeholders were being co-opted by the Church council, although the congregation retained the right of veto, or at least of objection87. A similar development can be observed for the French Church in London, where the congregation lost the right to elect elders and deacons; however there the Church council drew the congregation into closer cooperation over the election of pastors and preachers88. 2. Lay People in the Scottish Kirk In Reformed Scotland, a strikingly similar pattern was established of lay involvement in both discipline and the appointment of ministers, 82. Ibid., p. 89. This changed later, when some congregations became so bitterly divided that they were unable to agree on a candidate: ibid. 83. J. BECKER, Kirchenzucht als Seelsorge: Johannes a Lascos ‘Forma ac ratio’ (1555) und Robert le Maçons Kirchenordnung für die Französische Fremdengemeinde London (1578), in Zwingliana 35 (2008) 117-143, pp. 125-126. 84. Ibid., p. 126. 85. BECKER, Gemeindeordnung und Kirchenzucht (n. 80), pp. 109-110. See also, J.R. WEERDA, Der Emder Kirchenrat und seine Gemeinde: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte reformierter Kirchenordnung in Deutschland, ihrer Grundsätze und ihrer Gestaltung, Wuppertal, Foedus-Verlag, 2000, pp. 45-56. 86. BECKER, Gemeindeordnung und Kirchenzucht (n. 80), p. 166. 87. Ibid., pp. 298-308. 88. Ibid., pp. 463-476.

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elders and deacons, as laid down in the Books of Discipline89. In 1560, the First Book of Discipline was drafted. Although it was not officially endorsed, as Michael Graham observes, many of its principles were put into practice90. Like German Church orders, the First Book of Discipline called for a radically overhauled educational system, with the provision of schools across Scotland. Although this provision took well over a century to become reality, and even longer in the Highlands, the intention was clear: the people of Scotland were to be educated in the faith91. In addition, the First Book of Discipline emphasised the responsibilities of the congregation in choosing and appointing their minister: It appertains to the people, and to every several congregation, to elect their minister. And in case that they are found negligent therein the space of forty days, the best reformed kirk – to wit, the Church of the superintendent 89. The First Book of Discipline can be found in The Works of John Knox [hereafter WJK], ed. D. LAING, vol. 2, New York, AMS Press, 1966 (reprint of Edinburgh, 1895), pp. 183-260 (modernised text online at http://www.swrb.com/newslett/actualNLs/bod_ ch03.htm). The scholarly edition is The First Book of Discipline, ed. J.K. CAMERON, Edinburgh, Saint Andrew Press, 1972. The Second Book of Discipline is printed in D. CALDERWOOD, History of the Kirk of Scotland, ed. T. THOMSON, Edinburgh, Wodrow Society, 1843, vol. 3, pp. 529-555 (modernised text online at http://www.swrb.com/newslett/actualNLs/bod_ch04.htm). The scholarly edition is The Second Book of Discipline, ed. J. KIRK, Edinburgh, Saint Andrew Press, 1980. The editions by Thomson, Cameron and Kirk were not available to me at the time of writing, and quotations are taken from the modernised texts available online; the numbering of points from the Second Book of Discipline is, however, according to Kirk’s edition. John Knox had spent time in exile in Geneva, where he became familiar with the Church order put in place by Calvin, which he adapted for Scotland, and in Frankfurt. See E. CAMERON, Frankfurt and Geneva: The European Context of John Knox’s Reformation, in R.A. MASON (ed.), John Knox and the British Reformations, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1998, 51-73; J. DAWSON, John Knox, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2015, pp. 90-164. Knox was closely involved in the controversy in Frankfurt which centred on the liturgy used by the English Church, but, as Cameron observes, he was unhappy not only with some of the ceremonies retained in England’s 1552 Book of Common Prayer, but also because “it contained no provisions for discipline, and thus lacked an essential third ‘mark’ of the true Church” (CAMERON, Frankfurt and Geneva, p. 65), and Dawson indicates that, in characteristically Reformed fashion, within the Frankfurt English congregation “the lay leaders had introduced a strong element of congregational participation for the management of the Church that bore little resemblance to the organization of the Church of England” (DAWSON, John Knox, p. 93). Knox drew on his experience in Geneva for the ordering of worship and discipline in Scotland, and for their constitution in the Book of Discipline and the Book of Common Order: M.F. GRAHAM, The Uses of Reform: “Godly Discipline” and Popular Behavior in Scotland and Beyond, 1560-1610 (Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, 58), Leiden, Brill, 1996, pp. 28, 36, 38. 90. GRAHAM, The Uses of Reform (n. 89), pp. 38, 40-41. 91. First Book of Discipline, “For the Schools”, WJK 2, pp. 208-212; CAMERON, First Book (n. 89), pp. 129-136; and see also Cameron’s comment on this interpolation in the introduction to his edition: ibid., pp. 54-57.

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with his council – may present unto them a man whom they judge apt, to feed the flock of Christ Jesus, who must be examined as well in life and manners, as in doctrine and knowledge92.

Ministers were to be admitted with “consent of the people and kirk whereto they shall be appointed, and approbation of the learned ministers appointed for their examination”, and it was explicitly stated that “other ceremony than the public approbation of the people, and declaration of the chief minister, that the person there presented is appointed to serve that kirk, we cannot approve”93. That is, there was to be no laying on of hands. In places where no minister was available, a reader was to be appointed – “the most apt men that distinctly can read the common prayers and the scriptures” – who was “to exercise the kirk”, that is, to take regular services94. Readers were generally drawn from the congregation. Alongside the minister, each parish was to have elders, also called seniors, who were “to assist the minister in all public affairs of the Church” and particularly in exercising discipline95, and deacons, who were to “receive the rents and gather the alms of the Church”, but who might also “assist in judgment with the ministers and elders, and may be admitted to read in the assembly if they are required, and are found able thereto”96. Elders and deacons were to be “men of best knowledge in God’s Word, of cleanest life, men faithful, and of most honest conversation that can be found in the Church”97, nominated by and elected from the congregation, annually, in such a way that “every man may give his vote freely”98. The post-Reformation Scottish Church introduced a comprehensive system of parish discipline, which was intended to pertain to every member of the Church: To discipline must all estates within this realm be subject if they offend, as well the rulers as they that are ruled; yea, and the preachers themselves, as well as the poorest within the Church. And because the eye and mouth 92. First Book of Discipline, Fourth Head, WJK 2, p. 189; CAMERON, First Book (n. 89), p. 96. 93. First Book of Discipline, Fourth Head, part 3, WJK 2, pp. 192, 193; CAMERON, First Book (n. 89), pp. 101, 102. 94. First Book of Discipline, Fourth Head, part 4, WJK 2, pp. 195-196; CAMERON, First Book (n. 89), pp. 105-106. 95. First Book of Discipline, Eighth Head, WJK 2, pp. 234-235; CAMERON, First Book (n. 89), pp. 175-176. 96. First Book of Discipline, Eighth Head, WJK 2, pp. 236-237; CAMERON, First Book (n. 89), pp. 178-179. 97. First Book of Discipline, Eighth Head, WJK 2, pp. 233-234; CAMERON, First Book (n. 89), p. 174. 98. First Book of Discipline, Eighth Head, WJK 2, pp. 234; CAMERON, First Book (n. 89), p. 175.

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of the Church ought to be most single and irreprehensible, the life and conversation of the ministers ought most diligently to be tried99.

Ministers too were subject to discipline: elders and deacons were to monitor the “manners diligence and study of their ministers”, admonishing them if necessary, and reporting annually to the superintendent100. The responsibility exercised by the congregation as a whole was emphasised in the requirement that any sentence of excommunication was to be imposed “by the mouth of the minister, consent of the ministry, and commandment of the Kirk”101. Cameron notes that this requirement was in line with Calvin’s teaching which envisaged excommunication as taking place “with the knowledge and approval of the Church”102. However, Calvin envisaged the role of the congregation as one of providing a check against arbitrary decisions rather than making the decisions: “the multitude of the people does not decide the action but observes as witness and guardian so that nothing may be done according to the whim of a few”103. As is apparent from the instructions for the appointment of ministers, the First Book of Discipline envisaged a system of superintendents with dioceses104. After an initial round of central appointments, superintendents were to be nominated by the ministers, elders, and deacons, together with the magistrate and council” of the “chief town within that province” (that is, diocese) or by the churches of the diocese, or failing a nomination within twenty days, by superintendents, ministers, and elders of three adjacent dioceses. Thirty days after the nomination, the candidates were to preach, the ministers of the diocese were to examine them, and the election was to take place. Ministers might communicate the votes of 99. First Book of Discipline, Seventh Head, part 3, WJK 2, p. 233; CAMERON, First Book (n. 89), p. 173. For objections to this principle amongst the elite, see GRAHAM, The Uses of Reform (n. 89), pp. 259-279 (revised version of M.F. GRAHAM, Equality before the Kirk? Church Discipline and the Elite in Reformation-Era Scotland, in Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 84 [1993] 289-310). 100. First Book of Discipline, Eighth Head, WJK 2, pp. 235-236 (quotation p. 236); CAMERON, First Book (n. 89), pp. 175-176 (quotation p. 176). For the practical expression of this policy of lay involvement in the appointment and on-going assessment of ministers, see M. TODD, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland, New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 2002, pp. 362-370. 101. First Book of Discipline, Seventh Head, WJK 2, p. 230; CAMERON, First Book (n. 89), p. 170. 102. CALVIN, Institutes IV.12.7, cited according to CAMERON, First Book (n. 89), p. 170, n. 27. 103. Ibid. 104. There is some debate about when this section was added; Cameron argues that it was part of the second revision which took place in the second half of 1560: CAMERON, First Book (n. 89), pp. 23, 50-51.

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the congregations, and “men must be charged in the name of God, to vote according to conscience, and not after affection”105. However, these provisions did not satisfy those who wished to see a Genevan – nonepiscopal – system implemented in Scotland, and who wished to do away with any form of permanent overseer who might claim “superiority in jurisdiction” and to focus the exercise of Church discipline in parishes106. Under the Second Book of Discipline, drafted in 1578 and endorsed by the General Assembly in 1581, superintendents (who might be understood as bishops by another name), were therefore replaced by a system of assemblies or synods, adapting Calvin’s Geneva consistory to a national context107. The scheme proposed by the Second Book of Discipline provided for a hierarchy of four levels of assembly. Locally, within the congregation, the assembly known as the kirk session was to run the parish, implement the decisions of the provincial and national assemblies, and exercise discipline, including the power to excommunicate108. Established in some places very early (even before 1560)109, in other parishes ministers were still being reminded in the 1580s and 1590s of the need to establish kirk sessions110. The Second Book of Discipline also envisaged regional or provincial assemblies or synods (also known as elderships111), which provided for areas which were originally coterminous with the medieval 105. First Book of Discipline, Fifth Head, part 3, WJK 2, pp. 205-207; CAMERON, First Book (n. 89), pp. 125-126. 106. G. DONALDSON, The Scottish Reformation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1961, pp. 184-185. 107. The Second Book of Discipline, chapter 7, “Of the Elderships, and Assemblies, and Discipline”. For the introduction of the Second Book of Discipline, see GRAHAM, The Uses of Reform (n. 89), pp. 130-134. The Scottish proposals had their roots in new thinking in the Swiss Church on the role of episcopacy, especially under Theodore Beza, mediated to Scotland by Andrew Melville and others: see DONALDSON, The Scottish Reformation (n. 106), pp. 187-191. Considerable controversy ensured in Scotland over the introduction of presbyteries, and over the next century the system of ordering the Kirk swung between bishops (or superintendents) and presbyteries, or combinations of both. See, for the period to 1592, DONALDSON, The Scottish Reformation, pp. 203-225; to 1599, GRAHAM, The Uses of Reform, pp. 140-147, 156-162; to 1638, D.G. MULLAN, Episcopacy in Scotland: The History of an Idea, 1560-1638, Edinburgh, John Donald Publishers, 1986. None of these deal with the complex patterns of Church government which shaped the seventeenth century Church before the final introduction of presbyterian order and the abolition of bishops in 1690. The question of whether or not Calvin’s Genevan system of Church government can properly be regarded as presbyterian has been much debated. See for instance M.J. LARSON, John Calvin and Genevan Presbyterianism, in Westminster Theological Journal 60 (1998) 43-69. 108. The Second Book of Discipline 7.13-22; KIRK, Second Book (n. 89), pp. 198-201. 109. GRAHAM, The Uses of Reform (n. 89), pp. 38-36. 110. Ibid., pp. 131, 157. 111. The Second Book of Discipline 7.1; KIRK, Second Book (n. 89), p. 195.

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diocesan boundaries, dealt with “weighty matters, to be treated by mutual consent and assistance of the brethren within the provinces”112. The national or General Assembly, which had existed since 1560, had been “instituted that … things generally serving for the weal of the whole body of the kirk within the realm may be foreseen, treated, and set forth to God’s glory”. Its responsibilities included ensuring that “kirks be planted where they are not planted”; it oversaw the Scottish Church including the work of the regional conferences and of the presbyteries113. Finally, the Second Book of Discipline referred to an international assembly, “a general council of the whole kirk of God” which would be made up “of all and diverse nations professing one Jesus Christ”114. Each of these assemblies was – at least in theory – to be “constituted of pastors, doctors, and … elders”115, although in practice the regional assemblies or synods (when they met) had less lay involvement116. Each assembly was to elect a moderator “who should propose matters, gather the votes, and cause good order to be kept in the assemblies”117. The role of these assemblies was to exercise oversight over the church: “first, to keep the religion and doctrine in purity, without error and corruption; next, to keep comeliness and order in the kirk”118. The power of visitation lay with the assemblies, and the Second Book of Discipline expressly instructed that responsibility for visitation should not – indeed, must not – “abide always in one man’s person”; rather the assemblies should “send out qualified persons” to conduct visitations119. The Second Book of Discipline laid down that eldership became an appointment for life, and annual elections ceased to be required, although the membership of the kirk session might rotate120. The impact of this, suggests Graham, was “to make lay elders and deacons clergy of a sort themselves”121, and to place an emphasis on the role of the laity which, as Laura Stewart argues, “blurred the 112. The Second Book of Discipline 7.27-31; KIRK, Second Book (n. 89), pp. 203-204. 113. The Second Book of Discipline 7.32-39; KIRK, Second Book (n. 89), pp. 204-205. 114. The Second Book of Discipline 7.2, 40-41; KIRK, Second Book (n. 89), pp. 191, 205-206. 115. The Second Book of Discipline 7.1; KIRK, Second Book (n. 89), p. 195. 116. See L.A.M. STEWART, Authority, Agency and the Reception of the Scottish National Covenant of 1638, in R. ARMSTRONG – T. Ó HANNRACHÁIN (eds.), Insular Christianity: Alternative Models of the Church in Britain and Ireland, c. 1570-1700 (Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain), Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2013, 88-107, pp. 91-92. 117. The Second Book of Discipline 7.5; KIRK, Second Book (n. 89), pp. 195-196. 118. The Second Book of Discipline 7.9; KIRK, Second Book (n. 89), p. 197. 119. The Second Book of Discipline 7.8; KIRK, Second Book (n. 89), p. 197. 120. The Second Book of Discipline 6.6-7; KIRK, Second Book (n. 89), p. 192. 121. GRAHAM, The Uses of Reform (n. 89), p. 133.

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boundaries between the formal organs of the church and the wider religious community”122. Margo Todd observes that the mutual admonition of minister and people resulted in “a lay spiritual elite [which] was able to claim near-clerical status”123. Overall, the provision for devolving authority to lay people and expecting them to hold their ministers to account tended to relativize distinctions between clergy, elders, and laity, subjecting both ministers and elders to the scrutiny of their congregations124. What the Second Book of Discipline did not explicitly establish were presbyteries, although it did refer to a cross-parish “common eldership”125. In some areas, groups of ministers were already meeting to discuss Scripture and doctrine, and in 1579, the General Assembly directed that such meets “might be judged a presbytery”126. In 1581, the General Assembly defined thirteen presbyteries, in a scheme which did not cover the whole of Scotland127. In 1586, fifty-one presbyteries were created, although in 1593 only forty-seven were in operation; by 1606 fifty-three were active128. Presbyteries, however, proved not conducive to lay involvement: although they may initially have been attended by the minister accompanied by an elder, they soon became – or reverted to being – gatherings of ministers129. By the turn of the century, Graham comments, Scotland had an “increasingly ministerially-dominated Church”130. In practice, not only did it take time for these structures to become established, as has already been seen, but, as John McCallum has shown for the Fife parishes, they varied somewhat from parish to parish. In most parishes, elections of elders and deacons tended to be rather processes of appointment, confirmed by the congregation; few kirk sessions rotated their members, let alone annually; and distinctions between deacons and elders were at best blurred and often non-existent131. In addition, as Stewart points out, it was often the case in Scotland that positions of 122. STEWART, Authority, Agency and the Scottish National Covenant (n. 116), p. 92. 123. TODD, Culture of Protestantism (n. 100), p. 362. 124. STEWART, Authority, Agency and the Scottish National Covenant (n. 116), p. 93; TODD, Culture of Protestantism (n. 100), pp. 370-374. 125. The Second Book of Discipline 12.7; KIRK, Second Book (n. 89), p. 232. 126. GRAHAM, The Uses of Reform (n. 89), pp. 133-134. 127. Ibid., pp. 134-136. 128. Ibid., pp. 141-142. 129. Ibid., pp. 136, 142-143. 130. Ibid., p. 143. 131. J. MCCALLUM, Reforming the Scottish Parish: The Reformation in Fife, 15601640, Farnham, Ashgate, 2009, especially pp. 154-160.

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“lay” authority in the Church tended to be held by “lairds and social elites, who were happy to work in tandem with their ministers to see the social hierarchy affirmed as much in the spiritual as in the secular sphere”132. McCallum finds that Fife’s rural Kirk Sessions might include landowners but also tenants and feuars; he cautions, however, that “there was considerable variation in the social composition of kirk sessions, not just between rural and urban parishes, but also within these broad categories”133. Nonetheless, he can still affirm that kirk sessions were “made up of men normally of respectable or high social standing, and in burghs were often drawn from the civic oligarchy, and in rural areas normally include a handful of lairds”134. Despite what Stewart asserts to be as “the prominent role accorded to the laity in almost all areas of religious activity”135, Reformed Scotland, like Lutheran Germany, tended to privilege the involvement of the elite laity in the organisation and oversight of the Church. 3. Conclusion Todd argues that the Kirk found itself confronted by the implications of taking the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers seriously: “ministers were forced by their own doctrine to grant that lay preaching could, with God’s blessing, convert, since even private men might have the gift of prophecy”, and the whole people might “propend questions, move doubts and argue with their ministers”136. Stewart is, however, right to emphasize that lay involvement, even in the Scottish Kirk, where it was far more carefully structured and regulated than in German Lutheran contexts, should not be mistaken for democratization, and that it may well have held democratic tendencies in check137. Definitions of a “member of the congregation” for the purposes of selecting or affirming the appointment of elders and deacons, let alone the post themselves, excluded not only all women, but also many men of the lower sort. Nonetheless, the Reformed understanding of the Church assumed that lay people could and should be involved in its running, and sought to integrate Church and community in such a way as to promote the Reformed understanding of a Christian way of life. 132. STEWART, Authority, Agency and the Scottish National Covenant (n. 116), p. 93. 133. MCCALLUM, Reforming the Scottish Parish (n. 131), pp. 160-167; quotation at p. 167. 134. Ibid., p. 187. McCallum also affirms that this overlap in personnel between kirk session members and local civic leaders helped to produce a clear understanding of the role of each institution: ibid., p. 188. 135. STEWART, Authority, Agency and the Scottish National Covenant (n. 116), p. 91. 136. TODD, Culture of Protestantism (n. 100), p. 370. 137. STEWART, Authority, Agency and the Scottish National Covenant (n. 116), pp. 91, 93.

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III. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS The Reformation brought with it a revised ecclesiology that founded the Church in the Word truly preached and the sacraments properly administered in the gathered congregation. This recognised that the gathered Christian community was essential to the existence of the Church. Through the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, the Reformers also emphasised the responsibility of each Christian to read and understand the Bible for themselves. Educational initiatives were fundamental to the Reformation for this reason, and households were intended to become places of prayer and piety, under the authority of the paterfamilias. Alec Ryrie suggests that “Protestantism was a university religion, and the experience of formal education of some kind or another was fundamental to what its preachers understood it to be”138. Within the order of the Church, however, the role of lay people was more closely defined, and often confined primarily to those lay men who often held positions of authority in the civic sphere. Authorised ministry to the priesthood of all believers was delegated to specific people: in the Lutheran context the minister; in the Reformed context the minister in association with elders or deacons, who were lay people who through this office exercised authority over their fellow parishioners, particularly in questions of discipline. Lay people clearly continued to have agency, not only within congregations but between congregations and communities. Thus, Judith Becker has observed in the case of Frankenthal that the movement of lay members – and not only pastors and theologians – between congregations helped to communicate ideas and liturgical practices139. Alec Ryrie observes that “Laymen could not preach, but they could publish, and they could exhort household gatherings which might extend beyond the immediate family”140. Congregational members (or at least male householders) in many Protestant contexts had a role to play in the selection, election or approval of their pastor or minister, and in some cases were involved throughout this process. In many parishes, the patron, a lay person, retained the right of presentation. 138. A. RYRIE, Being Protestant in Reformation Britain, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 473-474. 139. J. BECKER, Kirchenordnung und reformierte Identitätsbildung am Beispiel Frankenthals, in Kommunikation und Transfer im Christentum der Frühen Neuzeit, Mainz, von Zabern, 2007, 275-296, at p. 286. In quite another context, Scott Spurlock has shown the important role played by laity in preserving the Catholic Church in the Scottish Highlands: R.S. SPURLOCK, The Laity and the Structure of the Catholic Church in Early Modern Scotland, in ARMSTRONG – Ó HANNRACHÁIN (eds.), Insular Christianity (n. 116), 231-251. 140. RYRIE, Being Protestant (n. 138), p. 473.

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Tensions could and did exist, as has frequently been shown. These were not simply between minister and congregation but must often have been between the minister supported by some members of the congregation who found themselves opposed to other congregational members. Nobel describes a situation which must have been common to many village churches, in which “the pulpit was the principal place from where all types of announcements were made or notifications read out” (giving information such as the announcement of auctions, the leasing of pastures, payment of taxes, or introduction of new legislation), and the church was used on weekdays “for general purposes, often because villages didn’t have any other large buildings”: the school might be held in the church. Reflecting the centrality of the church for the community, each household was expected to make a financial commitment not only towards the minister’s upkeep, but also for the maintenance of the church building and the upkeep of the churchyard. Churchwardens collected these funds and had the powers to levy a tax on land or beer if additional funds were needed. These structures continued after the Reformation, but there is evidence that the Reformed minister, perhaps with the support of some of the elders, was opposed to what he saw as an “extremely harmful and annoying” use of the church, and tried to eradicate it141. Here, the new Church authorities objected to the congregation’s expectations about the role of the church in the community, which may have been in continuity with the pre-Reformation situation. Through such measures, the Reformation Church could distance itself from and disempower the community. Nonetheless, as Christopher Haigh argues, it was probably the case that “for the most part ministers and parishioners muddled along as best they could”142. Both wardens and clergy will have wanted to address local tensions initially through “informal justice, arbitration and conciliation”, so that “formal presentment to [an ecclesiastical] court was a last resort”143. As Margo Todd has shown for Scotland, lay people were drawn into these processes and made them their own: “Sabbath-breakers were censured not by an episcopal agent or an emissary from some far-off authority, but by their neighbours”144. However, local Churches needed lay people not only to share in the enactment of discipline, but to support the day-to-day

141. 142. 143. 144. Culture

NOBEL, The Changing Rural Parish in the Dutch Republic (n. 55), pp. 194-195. HAIGH, The Clergy and Parish Discipline (n. 46), p. 125. Ibid., pp. 126, 130. This is the main thesis arising from Todd’s study, but see especially TODD, of Protestantism (n. 100), pp. 403-404.

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liturgical and community life of the Church. Whilst lay involvement, especially in discipline, was more codified in the Reformed system, where the representation of lay people in kirk sessions and other synods or assemblies was expected, lay engagement was also essential to Lutheran congregations. Often, however, those who were drawn into these roles were people – men – of considerable standing. These were arguably processes of limited recognition of the ways in which the discipleship lay people might contribute to the life of the Church, and also of the ways in which lay people might assist in assessing or even policing their clergy, rather than processes furthering democratization as it later came to be understood. Despite all these caveats, however, it is clear that the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers did inspire and empower people. As Hartmut Lehmann puts it: since the early 1520s, no wall has been able to contain the dynamic expansion of some of Luther’s propositions. Just as Luther claimed direct access to the true meaning of God’s Word, anyone, if one followed Luther’s trust in the priesthood of all believers, literally anyone, could do the same, that is read the bible and draw conclusions, conclusions for his or her own personal life, but also conclusions affecting Christian communities and the secular world145.

Some were inspired to believe precisely what they were being taught by their pastors; others found themselves at odds with the authority of the institution, inspired to resistance and radicalism by what Dominic Erdozain has described as “the idea that conscience was the voice of God in the soul”146. Alec Ryrie finds that Protestantism introduced a culture of discursiveness and participation which tended to corrode the tight structures of the magisterial Churches147. For Lehmann this culture arises from “lay people who had discovered the religious and also political potential hidden in the Scriptures”148. Despite the efforts of the Churches of the Reformation to ensure that the gospel would speak in the same way to all those who read it, the age-old tension between spiritual authority and institutional authority continued to make itself felt. Ultimately, the 145. H. LEHMANN, Martin Luther’s Unruly Offspring: The Protestant Reformation and Radical Critique, in B. HEAL – A. KREMERS (eds.), Radicalism and Dissent in the World of Protestant Reform, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017, 15-24, at p. 18. 146. D. ERDOZAIN, The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx, New York, Oxford University Press, 2016, p. 35. 147. Expressed in a personal communication to the author, but see also RYRIE, Being Protestant (n. 138). 148. LEHMANN, Martin Luther’s Unruly Offspring (n. 145), p. 18.

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biblically focused convictions of these lay people, and particularly their sense that they had a right to be heard, furthered the call for democratic structures in both Church and society. University of Glasgow Theology and Religious Studies Room 2/1, No 4 The Square G12 8QQ Scotland [email protected]

Charlotte METHUEN

EXPLORING A NEGATIVE CATHOLIC ECCLESIOLOGY IN CONVERSATION WITH CONTEMPORARY CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY

Throughout the course of history, the force of messianic expectations often appears to those within a given religious tradition as entirely caught up in the fervor of an apocalyptic inversion of institutional order, what frequently comes across as a political form of antinomianism. This is the case because such messianic gestures are inseparably bound up with impulses for reform or revolution, critique or insurrection, and the distinction between these impulses is often either unclear or deliberately vague, creating a reality that, in turn, often makes genuine institutional reform that much more difficult to see implemented in actually existing structures. Yet, as the long history of reform within the Catholic Church specifically dictates, we witness such messianic forces for reform coexisting alongside whatever concrete form the Church has taken, positing the possibility for something like a negative ecclesiology – characteristically mistaken as antinomian, heretical, seditious or subversive – next to and even within a given ecclesiology. Just as Jesus was a messianic movement within, and so somewhat apart from and a challenge to, the Judaism of his day, so too does a negative ecclesiology motivate the heart of every Catholic ecclesiology, despite being mainly invisible in actually existing Church structures. As questions I will attend to in this essay, how exactly might a negative ecclesiology develop in messianic fashion within Catholic ecclesial structures? What would such a force that borders on the antinomian look like? How may such a force have undergirded the existence of the Catholic Church all along? And how might it be listened to instead of repressed for the health of the Church as a whole? I. SUSPENDING ORDER: THE RESIGNATION OF POPE BENEDICT XVI Certainly, a negative ecclesiology might be the phrase one could use to describe those critiques of the Catholic Church that it receives from outside of itself, such as through the historical and continued existence of Protestantism, for example, which certainly has presented Catholicism with a negative, critical ecclesiology. Alternatively, one might conceive

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of a negative ecclesiology as those voices coming from within a Catholic context that are yet marginal but no less radical in their calls for reform, frequently made too in such a way as to challenge the institutional nature of the Church. In this vein, we might note the work of the twentiethcentury radical priest Ivan Illich whose creative readings of reform and the problems associated with institutional forms has had some impact upon theologians and theorists as diverse as Charles Taylor, John Milbank and Giorgio Agamben, to name but a few more prominent figures1. Another reading of how a negative ecclesiology might function would be to see it not as formulated external to the Church or from its margins, but as issuing from its very center. Recently, at the conclusion to his Homo Sacer project, Giorgio Agamben, who works mainly in this series with historical Catholic theological sources, conceives of a “nocturnal council” that exists within the center of the structures of government (and, by extension, the Church) in order to de-activate laws, to see them suspended just as other councils exist to publicly proclaim them. The function of such a council is essentially to maintain a healthy sense of governance, though it is often neglected in terms of constituted institutional forms, as if by definition2. There is something like a messianic nature to such a council in that it de-activates that which had been rendered active by law. If we recall the way in which the messianic has typically been defined in philosophical terms, much as we see in the work of Jacques Derrida, for example, such an understanding of its inoperative function makes the suspension of normative identity a central feature of the messianic task and therefore as that which occurs within any institutional structure3. One might even place such a negative council under the sign of Pope Benedict XVI’s abdication of the papacy (as well as, I would add, under his removal of the concept of limbo from the doctrines of the Catholic Church). The Pope’s resignation was certainly a moment of cognitive dissonance between the Church and the world, as Lieven Boeve has illustrated, as it was an act that seemed to upend the authority of 1. See, among others, I. ILLICH, The Rivers North of the Future: The Testament of Ivan Illich as Told to David Cayley, Toronto, Anansi, 2005. Taylor’s commentary upon Illich’s work illuminates in particular the manner in which reform within institutional structures is frequently played out. C. TAYLOR, A Secular Age, Cambridge, MA, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007. Illich’s notion of reform, it should also be noted, was deeply influenced by G.B. LADNER, The Idea of Reform: Its Impact on Christian Thought and Action in the Age of the Fathers, rev. ed., New York, Harper, 1967. 2. G. AGAMBEN, The Use of Bodies, trans. A. KOTSKO, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 2016. 3. See, among other writings, J. DERRIDA, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International, trans. P. KAMUF, London, Routledge, 1994.

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the papal office. It was also, however, as Boeve likewise notes, and for the same reason, a moment of cognitive dissonance internal to the Catholic Church4. The Church’s authority appeared not merely as shaken, but as somehow operating against itself. As Agamben himself suggests concerning Benedict’s resignation, This man, who was at the head of the institution that claims the most ancient and pregnant title of legitimacy, has called into question the very sense of this title with his gesture. In the face of a curia that, completely oblivious to its own legitimacy, stubbornly pursues the motives of economy and temporal power, Benedict XVI has chosen to use only spiritual power, in the only way that seemed possible to him, namely by renouncing the exercise of the vicarship of Christ. In this way, the Church itself has been called into question to its very root5.

In his reading, the “man of lawlessness” (the one who is anomos) or the Antichrist who may yet turn out to be the speculative embodiment of the antinomian position, is perhaps none other than Pope Benedict XVI himself. He wielded his messianic, spiritual power only in order to defuse the sovereign gestures behind the Throne of Saint Peter. He acted, as the head of the Catholic Church, against the Catholic Church’s own legitimacy crisis, on behalf of the Church that survives within the worldly, secular Church. Seen from this point of view, locating the messianic impulses for reform within the Church today, even ones appearing as antinomian, might be much easier than we could have suspected, and not just along its margins; they may indeed prove to be centrally institutional in some sense. Perhaps we are witnessing what Benedict himself referred to as the playing out of “contradictory positions” embedded within the nature of law itself, an illustration that only drives home Boeve’s earlier point concerning cognitive dissonance6. The condition of Benedict’s power was to act, as Rosemary Radford Ruether had put it much earlier, as the Church against itself, a fundamental dynamic for reform in which the Church acts against its structure as institution in order to see justice enter more directly into the existence of the Church7. At the same time, however, the Pope’s actions are a gesture of the sovereign’s power to suspend the normal conditions of 4. L. BOEVE, Theology at the Crossroads of University, Church and Society: Dialogue, Difference and Catholic Identity, London, Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016, pp. 221-234. 5. G. AGAMBEN, The Mystery of Evil: Benedict XVI and the End of Days, trans. A. KOTSKO, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 2017, pp. 4-5. 6. See the description of Pope Benedict’s understanding of law in J.H. SMITH, Dialogues between Faith and Reason: The Death and Return of God in Modern German Thought, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2011, p. 267. 7. R.R. RUETHER, The Church against Itself: An Inquiry into the Conditions of Historical Existence for the Eschatological Community, New York, Herder & Herder, 1967.

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politics, as Carl Schmitt had once put it8. Like the “nocturnal council” that Plato had once suggested might negate existing laws as the counterpoint to political assemblies that pass legislation, and which Agamben further reflects upon, Benedict’s resignation enacts sovereign power through its negation of an existing order, returning us to sovereignty’s most basic level of decision-making as the power to dissolve existing structures. Like the power of a modern-day monarch who does not govern, but only reserves the right to suspend parliament and call elections, Benedict exercised what may be the purest use of sovereignty: the right to suspend the rule of law (or order, or office) in order that a new, more just law, order or office might possibly be established. But how is such an act to co-exist within the Church when one stops to consider the normative order that is canon law or doctrine? Can such measures, which are taken as law, be suspended or removed permanently, or is their existence never to go away, structurally-speaking, though their specific content may change over time? This tension is not peripheral to Agamben’s claims regarding the nature of community in general, but rather constitutes a pivotal point in his philosophy. As he suggested in a talk delivered in Paris at the Notre Dame Cathedral in 2009, there must exist a permanent tension between “Law or State”, or those institutions dedicated to “governance of the world” and a force of the “messiah, or Church”9. Recognizing the reality of Schmitt’s political-theological insight that we live today in a crisis of “states of permanent exception and emergency”, Agamben’s call is for the Church to “recover its messianic vocation” and perhaps thereby restore some of the complexio oppositorum that Schmitt had once maintained defined Roman Catholicism above all else10. In some sense, then, perhaps we are glimpsing something like the ability of the sovereign to demonstrate a self-reflexive capacity that radically alters the position of the sovereign vis-à-vis those the sovereign rules over. 8. See C. SCHMITT, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, trans. G. SCHWAB, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 2005, as well as the commentary offered in G. AGAMBEN, State of Exception, trans. K. ATTELL (Homo Sacer, 2.1), Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 2005. 9. G. AGAMBEN, The Church and the Kingdom, trans. L. DE LA DURANTAYE, New York, Seagull, 2012, p. 35. 10. Ibid., pp. 40-41. See also C. SCHMITT, Roman Catholicism and Political Form, trans. G.L. ULMEN, Westport, CT, Greenwood, 1996, p. 7. This sense of the complexio oppositorum that Schmitt discerned in Catholicism, I would argue, shares a certain affinity with, not only the doctrine of the Incarnation, but also with the in-built both/and structure that recognizes a tension that cannot be resolved within the Church. See, for instance, the conclusions reached in G. O’COLLINS – M. FARRUGIA, Catholicism: The Story of Catholic Christianity, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004.

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Typically, however, Agamben’s calls for a renewed emphasis upon the messianic vocation in particular, as opposed to a defense of traditional, institutional structures, has often steered his critics toward denouncing him as merely an antinomian or anarchic thinker11. Though this charge may sound damning, as I have argued elsewhere, modern and contemporary forms of continental philosophy have frequently played the role of permanently negative critic to the metaphysical structures of the West, the very ones that routinely undergird ecclesial structures, offices and institutions12. It is no surprise, then, that many theologians over the past century or so, have perceived continental philosophy as little more than a nihilistic exercise in destroying whatever the Church has held most dearly. Yet, if we can begin to see things from another perspective, perhaps what continental thought presents any existing structure or political form with is an opportunity to reformulate its most basic understanding of itself, and not as a one-time revolutionary action; rather, perhaps the critical bent of continental thought illustrates how a negative function shadows every existing structure from the start. There is, then, no positive ecclesiology without a simultaneously existing negative one. II. ECCLESIAL SELF-REFLEXIVITY AS ACHIEVED THROUGH A NEGATIVE POLITICAL THEOLOGY On par with such reflections that stress the need for an interruption of institutional structures and norms, the philosopher and crypto-Catholic theologian John Caputo’s recent declaration of the need for a theologically-inflected “nihilism of grace” perhaps most clearly sets the stage for, not only a re-examination of how Christianity might be reconceived in light of “weak messianic thought”, but also for a more precise portrait of a deconstructive or negative ecclesiology. What Caputo envisions in his work is nothing less than a permanent reformation of Catholic structures that borders, for some, on being perpetually antinomian (and so the true, though often veiled, conclusion of all forms of “weak theology”). In many ways it could be argued that Caputo’s ecclesiology is a perpetual repetition of Luther’s challenges to the Catholic Church, while also 11. See, for example, C. MILLS, The Philosophy of Agamben, Stocksfield, Acumen, 2008. See also the defense of Agamben’s “pure antinomianism” in T. ZARTALOUDIS, Giorgio Agamben: Power, Law and the Uses of Criticism, London, Routledge, 2010. 12. C. DICKINSON, Continental Philosophy and Theology (Brill Research Perspectives. Theology, 2/1), Leiden, Brill, 2018.

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bearing the possibility of embodying what the political theorist Leo Strauss had already pronounced: modern forms of liberalism inevitably lead to cultural relativism and nihilist perspectives13. Opposition to such forms of liberalism, which Caputo’s work seems to descend directly from, have already been seen in certain responses of Radical Orthodoxy, which, like Strauss, declares any such movement to be nihilistic in a decidedly unflattering sense14. Despite these possible charges against him, however, there have been attempts to read Caputo’s claims as being a call for a form of “radical democracy” apart from liberalism15. Such a radical democracy would espouse something like a negative political theology established in opposition to the Schmittian dichotomy between sovereign power (as dictatorship or papal monarchy) and liberal-democracy. That is, Caputo seeks after a non-dualistic attempt to work beyond the false dichotomy that establishes the realm of political theology16. If such a negative political theology seems to endorse the secularism that liberalism appeared to gift modernity, especially since it opposes the sovereign claims upon which the Church is founded, then the “weak thought” that Caputo offers us is actually the chance to re-examine the foundations of Christianity anew, though it is not necessarily the complete picture of the Church’s reality either. It is another voice from the margins, from even outside the Church in some sense, that issues a strongly-worded call for reform of the Church’s internal structures. Indeed, Caputo’s work seems to be something like a “secular theology” whose antinomian furor presents the Catholic Church with a perspective from outside itself through which to see itself anew. By tracing the Christian legacy that might be said to initiate a space for the secular (e.g. in the works of Gianni Vattimo no less than Caputo), I would argue that Caputo’s nihilism of grace (often taken as the perceived threat of postmodernism) cannot simply be equated with the nihilism of neoliberalism, but represents rather an attempt to construct a negative ecclesiology parallel in its operations to traditional negative 13. See, among others, L. STRAUSS, Liberalism Ancient and Modern, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 1968. 14. This tendency is perhaps most pronounced in the writings of John Milbank. From another perspective, one might contemplate a “poststructural ecclesiology” more sympathetic to Caputo’s claims along the lines that C. HOVORUN presents in his Scaffolds of the Church: Towards a Poststructural Ecclesiology, Eugene, OR, Cascade, 2017. 15. See, among others, W. BLANTON – C. CROCKETT – J.W. ROBBINS – N. VAHANIAN, An Insurrectionist Manifesto: Four New Gospels for a Radical Politics, New York, Columbia University Press, 2016. 16. See SCHMITT, Political Theology (n. 8).

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theologies (as I would argue Agamben too is performing) but at times parading in a contemporary context as the “secular”. That is, Christianity gives birth to both the Church and the secular at the same time, offering the Church a chance to read the secular as a negative, critical space through which the Church might offer a critique of itself. To elaborate on this claim, I would point toward the bifurcated reality of Church/secular space as a negative ecclesiology that exists as an openness to the Church’s own negativity, as too to the possibility of bearing witness to the role of the negative in law and institutional form, and how such a negative ecclesiology might possibly be the best way to bear witness to the seemingly invisible (eschatological) Kingdom of God which ceaselessly critiques the Church’s worldly existence. Rather than espouse a blatant antinomianism, as Caputo’s work often appears to conclude, or withdraw from traditional ecclesial structures altogether, a negative ecclesiology presents us with a picture of a Church always reforming itself from within, and thereby potentially disarming the oversimplified polemical debates that often surround ecclesiological discussions (e.g. John Caputo’s weak theology vs. John Milbank’s radical orthodoxy). Such a critical self-examination of the structures for ecclesial reform are precisely what must be addressed if Christianity is to become more aware of its own internal dynamics. Framing the discussion theoretically as such puts us face to face with something like the anomic, anarchic or weak messianic forces that may be said to typify a genuine Catholic ecclesiology – impulses that give rise to internal processes of “desacralization” while also striving to maintain something of a tradition of the sacred at the same time17. Though these processes might be said to originate within modernity through the Protestant Reformation, it is perhaps more proper to assert, as the intellectual historian Larry Siedentop has done, that these forces are the result of a long unfolding of Christian messianic claims within the culture of Europe and within its Judaic roots18. Europe’s “civil war” between Christianity and secularism, something that Pope Benedict XVI

17. “Desacralization” is the chosen terminology of the Reformation historian Carlos M.N. Eire, in contrast to either “disenchantment” or “secularization”, precisely because it indicates an internal process, a “subtraction from within, of Christians eagerly reducing the scope of the supernatural on earth, rather than a process of erosion by external factors of any kind […]”. C.M.N. EIRE, Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450-1650, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2016, p. 748. 18. L. SIEDENTOP, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism, Cambridge, MA, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014.

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was wanting to exacerbate at times (and as Siedentop notes), “[…] is as tragic as it is unnecessary”: Properly understood, secularism can be seen as Europe’s noblest achievement, the achievement which should be its primary contribution to the creation of a world order, while different religious beliefs continue to contend for followers. Secularism is Christianity’s gift to the world, ideas and practices which have often been turned against “excesses” of the Christian church itself19.

Again, what we are facing in the emergence of secularity is another moment of external and internal critique to the authority that the Catholic Church maintains. It is the outcome of a long lineage of critical, messianic impulses toward reform that have not gone away over time, but have, if anything, grown stronger and more insistent, even if the Church fails to take note or respond to such trends. Such messianic lines run straight through European philosophy on the whole as well, from Karl Marx to Walter Benjamin to Martin Heidegger20. Secularization, or desacralization, is not opposed to Christianity in this sense; it is Christianity’s child that modernity helped Christianity to acknowledge21. Defending such a position might even be able to envision secularism, as the historian Diarmaid MacCulloch has suggested, not as an “enemy of Christian faith”, but as offering “a chance to remould Christianity” in relation to its own roots much more clearly22. III. IMPULSES FOR ECCLESIAL REFORM In the context of modern Catholicism and its own impulses for reform, I believe that what messianic antinomianism represents, more or less, is what the Catholic theologian Yves Congar once isolated as the ongoing 19. Ibid., p. 360. 20. See J. WOLFE, Messianism, in N. ADAMS – G. PATTISON – G. WARD (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Theology and Modern European Thought, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, 301-323. Heidegger’s relationship to the messianic is particularly fraught with religious, existential and (contradictory) political meanings, though his critique of all metaphysical structures, or onto-theologies, at least points toward something like the secular, or an “eschatology without eschaton” as Wolfe highlights elsewhere. J. WOLFE, Heidegger’s Eschatology: Theological Horizons in Martin Heidegger’s Early Work, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013. 21. In the words of MacCulloch, “[…] much of the Enlightenment was not antiChristian at all: it was able to alter Christianity and open it to ways of reformulating the questions and answers which made up Christian belief”. D. MACCULLOCH, The Reformation: A History, London, Penguin, 2003, p. 698. 22. D. MACCULLOCH, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, London, Viking, 2009, p. 1016.

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impulse for reform that is an ever-present dynamic within the Christian faith, one that can be ignored only insofar as one is willing to let negligent totalitarian forms reign supreme23. It is something like an impulse for self-critique that is more often than not mistaken for something other than what it actually is. It is also in some ways a coming to terms with a certain level of cognitive dissonance, as Boeve described it, that always precedes genuine moments of reform. Congar, as was evidenced through his eventual impact upon Pope John XXIII’s calling of the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s and the reforms that the Council began within the Catholic Church, was rather prescient in his isolation of this impulse for reform, though his take was nothing new to those Protestant theologians who had sensed this desire as one central to Christianity since, at least, Luther first found himself dabbling in these “heretical” waters, and was even mistaken by some of his followers as himself an antinomian revolutionary24. It is most instructive to pay attention to the role which such messianic, or even borderline antinomian impulses, have played in post-Reformation developments of Catholicism. Indeed, we might analyze in greater detail particular moments of messianic, reform-based desires as those which emphasize the dominant struggle within the Catholic Church throughout history as one concerning reform itself. In this reading, antinomian messianism is disguised in various historical heresies, especially as such forces have shaped certain “reactionary” councils (e.g. the Council of Trent or First Vatican Council which found themselves frequently asserting the authority, and infallibility, of the Pope and Catholicism at large), but also brought about a sustained increase in ecclesiastical critical self-examination over the long term, resulting in Vatican II’s intensely self-reflexive focus. What is clear, however, is that Vatican II initiated a process of self-critique and re-alignment of Catholicism from within, and not through the formation of an external “other” or marginal “enemy” of the faith, much as it had excluded and shaped Protestantism centuries earlier, or even as it censored its own theologians from time to 23. Y. CONGAR, True and False Reform in the Church, trans. P. PHILIBERT, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2011. There is, of course, a shared affinity of this theological view with Karl Barth’s “persistently critical” dialectical theology: “A Church whose theology is dialectical will realize that it always stands in need for reformation, and will never claim that its Reformation was accomplished once and for all in the past. In its moments of most confident proclamation it will be kept humble by the consciousness of its frailty. He who glories must glory only in the Lord”. A.R. VIDLER, The Church in an Age of Revolution: 1789 to the Present Day, London, Penguin, 1961, p. 220. 24. See the defense of his theological position against the charge of antinomianism in M. LUTHER, Only the Decalogue Is Eternal: Martin Luther’s Complete Antinomian Theses and Disputations, trans. H. SONNTAG, Minneapolis, MN, Lutheran Press, 2008.

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time. What we seem to face with Vatican II is again what Ruether once described in the context of Catholicism specifically as the process of reform through what appears as the Church working “against itself”, but in such a way as to further illuminate its own self-understanding. Perhaps some of the critical examination that continuously befalls the Catholic Church throughout history is the result of an inherent paradox in its conciliar structure wherein democratic conversation takes place amongst bishops yet within a hierarchical, authoritarian edifice – a structure that, again, reflects Schmitt’s tension between the sovereign and liberalism, or Michel Foucault’s analysis of pastoral power in relation to mysticism. A dynamic unfolds as such within the Catholic Church which one historian of the Church’s many councils refers to as “the most engaging theme” within all of the councils: “the attempt to balance the relationship between the pope and the general council and/or the council of bishops”25. This tension, which is mirrored by another one the Church recognizes between theologians and bishops26, is concerned with a force for democratization as it is set against a hierarchical (monarchical) authoritative structure. Such tensions are played out, however, on an unequal terrain wherein papal authority, for example, according to canon law, is able to override the pronouncements made by a synod. In this sense, the impulse to place the “people of God”, as evidenced in the democratic impulses of Vatican II’s document on the Church, Lumen Gentium or of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, at the center of Catholicism today is still offset by an institutional imbalance toward papal authority. An astute observer need not burrow too far into the operations of the modern Catholic Church to discover that the Church and its hierarchy are often at odds with other members of its body, as the example of Pope Francis, his “conversion of the papacy” and its many critics among more conservative parts of the Church would seem to indicate27. What such examples demonstrate is no doubt the profound reality of the Church existing “against itself” through its own conciliar structure that pits one of its popular elements against a hierarchical one, much as Schmitt had pitted sovereignty against its 25. C.M. BELLITTO, The General Councils: A History of the Twenty-One Church Councils from Nicaea to Vatican II, New York, Paulist, 2002, pp. 1, 6, 150. 26. The permanent, in-built tension between Catholic bishops and the Church’s theologians is noted in the International Theological Commission’s 2011 document “Theology Today: Perspectives, Principles and Criteria”, published online at http://www.vatican.va/ roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_doc_20111129_teologia-oggi_en. html. 27. See, among others, A. BROWN, “The War against Pope Francis”, The Guardian 27 October 2017. Accessed online at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/27/thewar-against-pope-francis.

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democratic-liberal counterpart and had fought hard for the sovereign to suppress the “endless conversations” of liberalism altogether28. It is because the temptation toward (papal) sovereignty is so strong even today, I would suggest, that voices continue to be raised, as with Agamben earlier, calling for the Church to recognize its messianic vocation anew vis-à-vis existing canonical laws and ecclesial structures. IV. LISTENING TO VOICES ON

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Jesus’ own preaching would, to be sure, often land him in a position wherein he was understood as leaving behind all forms of law in order to have direct access to the grace of God – the ultimate messianic, antinomian stance and that which appeared, in Jesus’ case at least, to be a challenge not only to the Jewish adherence to Torah, but also to the reign of Caesar and nearly every conventional norm that governed his world. To this day, I would add, we seem to have little comprehension of what he genuinely meant when he spoke of the believer’s relationship to the various forms of law, and the proof of our continual misunderstanding is that we have not yet sorted out the role of messianic antinomian (or rather hypernomian) thought within our religious world and its structures today29. The Church continues to isolate and exclude elements calling for reform from within its own ranks when these elements are part and parcel of what comprises any institution in the first place. It is a definite truism to state that Christianity contains within itself the urges both to establish structure and identify as a status quo and also to smash all idols in a quest for ever greater purity, as the historian of multiple “reformations” Carlos Eire has put it30. And, as he continues, This constant process of defining what was true and right in opposition to what was false and wrong became inescapable, even for reforming groups that sought to live in isolation from the rest of the world. Exclusion is 28. See C. SCHMITT, Dictatorship: From the Origin of the Modern Concept of Sovereignty to Proletarian Class Struggle, trans. M. HOELZL – G. WARD, Cambridge, Polity, 2014. As it resonates with the position of papal authority, we might note too Schmitt’s definition of a dictatorship: “Politically, one can label ‘dictatorship’ any direct exercise of stately power – that is, any exercise that is not mediated through autonomous intermediate institutions – and understand by it centralised government, in contrast to decentralised” (p. 116). 29. See, among others, the advancement of the debate in J.P. MEIER, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Vol. 4: Law and Love, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2009. “Nothing could be more foreign to this Palestinian Jew than a facile antithesis between Law and love. But love, as commanded by the Law, comes first – and second” (p. 576). 30. EIRE, Reformations (n. 17), p. 62.

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as important in religion as inclusion, and this is especially true of the Christian religion, which has always cared immensely about determining and clearly defining what makes the true different from the false, the genuinely faithful different from all that is deviant, the communion of saints different from all others31.

The political theology that underlies Christianity and which often motivates its (political) acts of exclusion and inclusion in order to more clearly define its boundaries routinely takes precedence over the core dynamic of Christianity (and Judaism too, for that matter) that would seek to preserve its prophetic and marginalized voices of resistance that cry out against the structure of a Church, and especially a Catholic Church, that can certainly at times be oppressive (and so make use of a “repressive” violence, as described earlier). This is, however, the messianic task par excellence: to redeem what some had thought to be beyond all redemption and so to exist permanently, as such, outside the fold (extra ecclesiam nulla salus). Comprehending this reality and realizing that the religious institution itself must learn to co-exist with, and incorporate the cries of, its most excluded and marginalized members is the messianic task which Catholicism (as well as both Judaism and Christianity on the whole) should be focused on in the centuries to come. This is the case not in order to do away with all structure, but rather to loosen the Church’s static and potentially oppressive nature. The Catholic Church as such must figure out a way to reside permanently with some cognitive (and perhaps doctrinal and symbolic) dissonance in order to find a more faithful and self-critical sense of itself. Perhaps Karl Rahner needs to remind the Catholic Church once again of the necessity for maintaining a balance between institutional structure and charism. Or, Rahner’s student and Catholic political theologian Johann Baptist Metz needs to recall for us the permanent tension that exists “between the institutional Church and the eschatological ‘kingdom of God’ proclaimed by it”32. This tension provides the messianic interruption that characterizes religion for Metz, just as such interruptions, following Boeve’s reading, force the Catholic Church to continuously recontextualize its teachings in ever new settings33. Such a tension is also what guarantees that the Church will never mistake itself for the ideal it strives to, but will never historically or actually, 31. Ibid., p. xi. 32. J.B. METZ, Theology of the World, trans. W. GLEN-DOEPEL, New York, Herder & Herder, 1969, p. 134. 33. See J.B. METZ, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology, trans. J.M. ASHLEY, New York, Crossroad, 2007. See also L. BOEVE, God Interrupts History: Theology in a Time of Upheaval, London, Continuum, 2007.

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become: “The Church that sought to remove the tensions which this involves within its institutional framework, banishing them as heterodox, would not appear more unified. It would only have the graveyard peace of dead life”34. Much the same impression can be found in the work of the contemporary Catholic theologian David Tracy who likewise has maintained a position that at once provides a defense of Catholic tradition while also calling for its necessary deconstruction at times so that more justice can be heard operating within the structures of the Church35. Perhaps too the clearest demonstration of such messianic forces at work within the Catholic Church comes from the many voices of contextual theologians (e.g. liberation, feminist, black, latino/a and queer, among others) who have sought for the last 50 years to hold the Catholic Church accountable for its teachings, public positions and institutional actions, all with an eye toward furthering the emancipatory possibilities for Catholic Christians. Theologians who have taken up such positions, such as Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff, Elizabeth Johnson, James Alison and Margaret Farley, among so many others, have often found themselves at odds with the Catholic hierarchy and at times formally censored, though such censorship has not lessened their influence or the significance of their writings in the least. In some respects, much as with Congar’s silencing by the Magisterium prior to Vatican II, such censuring has only increased the need to pay closer attention to what it is exactly that such voices are clamoring for, as their cries may actually point the way in the end toward a more inclusive and more just ecclesial structure. V. TOWARD A NEGATIVE CATHOLIC ECCLESIOLOGY It is interesting, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once pointed out, that the same critique of “works righteousness” that was levied against Catholicism by early Protestant reformers bent on expounding “faith righteousness” alone is the same charge that Christianity has evoked on occasion against Judaism36. It is not surprising in this light that Heschel, who saw this connection between Judaism and Christianity despite whatever historical and doctrinal tensions lie between them, took up this tension precisely in the context of the role of dogma within the life 34. METZ, Theology of the World (n. 32), p. 135. 35. D. TRACY, The Analogical Imagination: Christ, Theology, and the Culture of Pluralism, London, SCM, 1981. 36. A.J. HESCHEL, Protestant Renewal: A Jewish View, in The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence, New York, Noonday Press, 1967, p. 169.

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of faith. For him, dogmas are “tentative” and not “definitive”; they serve a higher purpose through their being fulfilled, which is to say, not discarded, but embodied – the very point that Saint Paul had been trying to make quite some time ago regarding the law, but which many who have left organized, dogmatic faith might have forgotten. Heschel’s insistence was that we must learn to look beyond such facile, binary oppositions as those that appear to lay between Judaism and Christianity, as also between law and grace, institution and messianic, antinomian impulse or sovereignty and liberal-democracy and learn to dwell in the concrete lives of persons who are trying to embody the faith that divides such divisions even further, until they erase all practical representations, not by falsely suturing opposites together, and not by choosing one side over another, but through seeing the brokenness or limitations of each side in their own context and terms. What Heschel calls us to consider is another way of “doing theology” altogether: “The time has come to break through the bottom of theology into depth theology”37. This is a call to formulate a depth theology, or a “pathetic” theology that shares in other “weak” theological endeavors (often notably present in continental philosophical conversations that tend toward a deconstruction of faith) to move beyond the hold that doctrine has had upon people of faith for centuries38, to move likewise beyond the strong, hierarchical holds which institutional authorities often hide behind, though not exactly in order to do away with doctrine or institutions or authorities altogether. Rather, religious persons are to hold them in the right way, a new way (perhaps even a hypernomian way), a way that gives life and offers much more than one might have thought was possible in the first place. Where we find ourselves at this point is before the call to embrace a certain poverty of theology that must be the only path forward for theological thought. It would seem that this is the space where we encounter a weakness that might appear as messianic, and perhaps even as antinomian, but which accompanies and is inseparable from every institutional identity. It would not be a great stretch of the imagination to suggest that, at the same time as one analyzes the forces of reform within the Catholic Church’s history, a spectral messianism – the central, underlying dynamic that gave birth to Christianity as an internal impulse within the heart of Judaism – works within the Church as essentially a force of self-critique. Messianism is primarily that which appears as an active deconstructive 37. Ibid., p. 177. 38. See, for example, J. CAPUTO, The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 2006.

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force working within a given personal or institutional structure, much as Derrida had consistently argued. To see this dynamic at work in the institutional structures of the Catholic Church, for example, is to identify an essential characteristic of messianism and of reform at the same time, and as that which can only muster concrete, historical voice, if we can even make such a claim (and Derrida was very suspicious that one ever could39), as an inherent critique of existing ecclesial structures levied at times by various antinomian or seemingly heretical groups. Learning to see messianism not as signaling a possible institutional form in itself, but rather as an in-built impulse for reform that stems most directly from Christianity’s initial relation to the Judaism of the time, we might be able to re-envision ecclesiology (and its antinomian “others”) tout court – not as needing to break from one another, but as two parts of a vital and dynamic whole. By looking at such moments in the modern Catholic Church, one might in turn highlight the fundamental question that arises from such a study: how has the Catholic Church responded to certain messianic, internal impulses for reform, from the Council of Trent to Vatican I, but also from Vatican II to Pope Francis’ current internal efforts at reform? How is each movement yet indicative of a “divinely instituted” (messianic) impulse for reform within the community of the Catholic Church? How do such movements usually get taken as antinomian or heretical? And how does the Catholic Church actively resist such impulses at the same time as it seemingly fosters them? And what can be done to more clearly identify and incorporate such impulses for the health and wellbeing of the Church? There is a great difficulty in trying to ascertain the precise nature of what exactly constitutes antinomianism, how it relates to messianism and the drive for reform, as well as just how we are to recover something like a positive sense of the term in order to move from non-self-aware ecclesiologies and toward something like a negative ecclesiology that takes seriously its own internal impulses for reform (again in a hypernomian sense) and the secular world it gave birth to. In general, the force of the messianic has frequently been taken to be a “heretical” impulse and counterpart to the more orthodox and normative structures within the Catholic Church specifically. But, in and of itself, as a phenomenon that

39. As Kevin Hart has pointed out, Derrida’s messianism would make for a very “thin” account of what religion actually offers. The notion of the “Kingdom” that Hart takes up is intended to be a historical reality that works more congenially with the existing structures of the Catholic Church. K. HART, Kingdoms of God, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 2014, p. 243.

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has historically not gone away once it was pointed out for what it was and dispatched presumably once and for all, it has rather become a cyclically recurring force within certain structurally oppressive contexts and persons (much like Gnosticism and pantheism have served at times throughout the ages), implying that more might be at stake in its appearance than one might otherwise assume – determining along the way too an alternative portrayal of the “origins” upon which the Church is said to rest. I return in the end to Agamben’s nocturnal council as a suggestive and practical idea for the Catholic Church in the modern era. What if the Church were to maintain a council or congregation at the Vatican that focused on antinomian and heretical movements, as well as other negative, messianic movements within the Church, not in order to censure them (as the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith has historically taken care of), but in order to listen to such movements as signs of change, messianic impulses for reform, active sites of oppression, repression or violence, as well as indications of where particular doctrines might need to be re-evaluated or, as in the case of limbo, discarded altogether. Paying attention to such voices of dissent within the Catholic Church as yet somehow being in unity with the identity and tradition of the Catholic Church is precisely what might enable more visible moments of messianic reform to be incorporated within the Church as moments of transformative encounter. Such transformative encounter is in fact precisely what the Catholic Church eventually concluded should be the atmosphere permeating any dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans, for example40. It only took 500 years to reach this point of understanding in ecclesial history. Why shouldn’t the construction of such a “nocturnal council” be just as difficult and essential a task in the years to come? Loyola University Chicago Department of Theology Crown Center 313 1032 West Sheridan Rd. Chicago, IL 60660 USA [email protected]

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40. Lutheran-Catholic Commission for Unity, “From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017”. Accessed online at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/lutheran-feddocs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_2013_dal-conflitto-alla-comunione_en.html#Five_Ecumenical_ Imperatives.

BEYOND HUBRIS THE CASE FOR A MORE PERFORMATIVE APPROACH TO ROMAN CATHOLIC ECCLESIOLOGY*

When it comes to traditional approaches to Catholic ecclesiology, modesty is a rare virtue, and few would quibble with that assertion. Moreover, it seems that the vice of Catholic ecclesiological hubris has occasionally masqueraded as a virtue, and this masquerade has been a sore point in ecumenical relations for the past five centuries. Although the Second Vatican Council’s nuanced, inclusive, and more ecumenical approach to ecclesiology provided significant forward momentum in developing the self-understanding of the Catholic Church, its relations with other Christian Churches, and its mission to the world, several factors have conspired to derail this momentum in recent years. First, Dominus Iesus (DI), though framed as a mere restatement of authentic Catholic teaching, was widely viewed as retrograde, and it provoked a significant backlash within Protestant circles. Second, the emergence of a “new” neo-Thomism, along with its emphasis on a formal approach to ecclesiology, threatens to broaden the gap between Catholic and Protestant ecclesiologies with the tendency to “double down” on a very “high descending” and ontological approach to ecclesiology. This widening gap owes itself to the appeal these formal approaches to ecclesiology enjoy within highly influential circles of the Catholic hierarchy and to their ubiquity especially within American seminaries in the last two decades. The combined weight of the disciplinary documents from Rome (especially DI) and the narrow “new” neo-Thomism that enjoys so much favour these days has helped to amplify a third factor that is derailing Catholic ecclesiology: what one might identify as a dialectical ecclesiology. This dialectical approach to ecclesiology feeds into the so-called “culture wars” in the United States and Western Europe, and it is an approach that continues to overshadow broader academic trends in ecclesiology, leaving Catholic pastors and their co-workers in an ecclesiological echo chamber – out of touch with and often out of reach from their Protestant sisters and brothers. This paper will contend that a more * Special thanks to Peter De Mey (KU Leuven), Luke Briola (Saint Vincent College), and Debra Faszer-McMahon (Seton Hill University) for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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performative and soteriologically-driven approach to ecclesiology, one that embraces essential and normative features of Catholic ecclesiology, provides a way forward by recasting the major themes of Catholic ecclesiology within a more ecumenical framework, and one that is also likely to contribute to the ongoing reform of Church structures and to enhance the mission of the Church within the contemporary world – a mission that is at the heart of the Church’s credibility. I. DOMINUS IESUS The release of Dominus Iesus by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in August 2000 provoked strong reactions among pastors and theologians in both Catholic and non-Catholic circles1. The tone of the document, which in ecumenical circles is no less important than substance, was a troubling combination of paternalism and catechesis, leaving ecclesiastical leaders and theologians from a wide range of otherwise well-disposed Protestant Churches alienated, even if they understood that most of the assertions made in DI were rooted in long-standing Catholic teaching that were directed primarily ad intra to Catholic theologians2. While DI itself outlined at least three goals: (1) setting forth Catholic doctrine, (2) “pointing out some fundamental questions that remain open to further development”, and (3) refuting specific positions as erroneous or ambiguous, the document generally ignores the second goal and overplays the third3. Ultimately, as Richard McBrien notes, the document does not invite or even encourage the exploration of difficult and, heretofore, open questions; rather, DI “chooses instead to follow the well-worn path of rejection and condemnation”4. The legalism of the document, and its tendency to reduce faith to obedience to the 1. CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Dominus Iesus, in Origins 30 (September 14, 2000) 209-219. 2. See, e.g., E. DOOGUE – S. BROWN, Dominus Iesus a ‘Public Relations Disaster’ for Ecumenism Say Critics, in Christianity Today (September 1, 2000) at http://www. christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/septemberweb-only/34.0a.html; Disciples of Christ Leaders Criticize Dominus Iesus, in National Catholic Reporter (17 November, 2000) 11; Reformed Churches Official Questions Catholic Ecumenical Commitment, in Origins 30/16 (2000) 255-256; Vatican Document Still Raising Ire, in The Gazette (Montreal) (October 21, 2000); Rome and Relativism: Dominus Iesus and the CDF, in Commonweal 27/18 (2000) 12-13. 3. DI 3. 4. R.P. MCBRIEN, Dominus Iesus: An Ecclesiological Critique, in Bulletin/Centro Pro Unione 59 (Spring 2001) 14-22.

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teaching authority of the Church, strikes many as problematic and as a distortion of recent advances in ecclesiology, especially in light of the bilateral dialogues of the decades following Vatican II5. Of special concern was the seemingly dismissive language used in DI 16-17 to describe Protestant Churches as “ecclesial communities”, as opposed to “true and particular Churches”, a move that many readers found especially offensive. Within Catholic circles, the offensiveness of the language and tone of the document was often secondary when compared to the subtle way DI pushed beyond what the documents of the Second Vatican Council taught, and certainly beyond what the Council fathers and their periti intended by affirming that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. By almost all accounts, the verb “is” (est) was changed to the verb “subsist” (subsistere) precisely to reflect the ecumenical tone of the Council and to provide a more expansive, nuanced, and ambiguous account of the relationship of the Church of Christ to the Catholic Church, affirming the fullness of the presence of the former in the latter, but in a manner that transcends the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church6. In DI, however, the CDF inexplicably moves in the opposite direction, building on the “notification” that same body produced on Leonardo Boff’s book, Church: Charism and Power, affirming that only elements of the Church of Christ (elementa Ecclesiae) can be found beyond the Catholic Church and that the “one subsistence” (subsistentia; a noun) of the Church of Christ was to be found in the

5. As then-Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, conceded: although DI broke no new ground, neither did it “reflect fully the deeper understanding that has been achieved through ecumenical dialogue and cooperation during the past thirty years”. Quoted in Vatican Declaration Provokes Church, BBC News (September 5, 2000) available at http:// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/910612.stm. On the juridical language at the heart of the document, see, e.g., R.E. RHODES, JR., On Juridical Elements in Theology, in Louvain Studies 28 (2003) 113-142. 6. The literature here is vast and well known, including the recordings of S. Tromp at the 1963 meeting of the Council’s Theological Commission where he proffered the term. But for a fuller discussion, see, e.g., A. GRILLMEIER, Commentary on Lumen Gentium, in H. VORGRIMLER (ed.), Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, vol. 1, New York, Herder and Herder, 1967, 138-185. Grillmeier notes that the Council fathers clearly intended to include non-Catholic Churches and ecclesial communities in the one, Church of Christ. DI, however, seems to take a different position on the matter, citing as it does its own “notification” concerning Leonardo Boff’s book, Church: Charism and Power. In the notification the CDF contends that insisting that there is “only one ‘subsistence’ of the true Church”, the Catholic Church. Outside this one subsistence there are only “elements” of the Church. See, F.A. SULLIVAN, ‘Subsists in’: The Significance of Vatican II’s Decision to Say of the Church of Christ Not That It ‘Is’ But That It ‘Subsists in’ the Roman Catholic Church, in One in Christ 22 (1986) 115-123 and J. WILLEBRANDS, Vatican II’s Ecclesiology of Communion, in One in Christ 23 (1987) 179-191.

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Catholic Church7. Moreover, this attitude leads DI to make clear and bold statements about the status of orders/ministry and the Eucharist in Anglican and Protestant Churches, saying essentially that only the Old Catholic and Orthodox Churches are “true particular Churches”. The problem is that no such conclusion about orders and ministry in the Protestant Churches was registered in the documents of the Council8. Dominus Iesus, thus, makes apparent that the Church of Christ consists of all and only those which it calls “true and particular Churches”9. Because the Council did decide to leave open the question of the validity of Protestant orders in other documents, no firm conclusion can be fairly drawn about the status of those orders, sacraments, or Churches. In other words, what the documents of the Second Vatican Council had left deliberately ambiguous, the CDF makes clear, rigid, and binding. Despite the merits of DI, the document might be read as signifying a refusal of ambiguity, specifically refusing an ecumenical humility and pastoral sensitivity, and instead embracing a drive toward exclusionary clarity and certainty in revelation. Note, for example, the disciplinary tone of the document and its repeated admonitions that focus on faith as an act of obedience to authority mediated through Church teaching10. On this point it might be reasonably objected that DI is merely a disciplinary document and should not be mistaken for a comprehensive statement on ecclesiology. But such an objection neglects to acknowledge the impact 7. CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Notification on the Book, Church: Charism and Power, by Father Leonardo Boff, O.F.M., at http://www.vatican.va/roman_ curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19850311_notif-boff_en.html. 8. See, J. HAMER, La terminologie ecclésiologique de Vatican II et les ministères protestants, in Documentation catholique 68 (1971) 626-628. Hamer insists that the Council used diverse terminology regarding Protestant and Anglican Churches because the Council did not wish to preempt the question of the validity of orders and Eucharist; rather, it wanted to leave the question open by providing ambiguous language. See also, T.P. RAUSCH, Has the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Exceeded Its Authority?, in Theological Studies 62 (2001) 802-810. For a more updated, and many would argue theologically less adequate, attempt to address and clarify the issues at stake, see the CDF document, Responses to Some Questions regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the Church (2007), available at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html. 9. F.A. SULLIVAN, Introduction and Ecclesiological Issues, in S.J. POPE – C. HEFLING (eds.), Sic et Non: Encountering Dominus Iesus, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 2002, 47-56, p. 54. 10. See DI 5, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14 16, and 20 where the document tends to employ the imperative mood calling for submission and obedience (e.g., Adaequata ergo responsio ad Dei revelationem est oboeditio fidei […]; Firmiter enim credendum est […]. Moreover, the italicization of these phrases throughout the translation of the document draws special attention and emphasis to these phrases. The imperative and instructive mood of DI is amplified by the question and answer format of the 2007 CDF document, Responses to Some Questions (see above).

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the document has had in directing ecumenical efforts and in controlling the formation of pastors in relationship to “other” Christians. The limited nature of the document belies its profound impact; rather, its influence is magnified by its institutional and disciplinary nature, and when amplified by other theological trends, it tends to create significant problems in Catholic ecclesiology and pastoral practice, by moving away from a truly explanatory account of the Church, its structures, and mission11. For it must be the case that the essential features of the Church can find affirmation in more inclusive and constructive language. II. A FRUSTRATING TREND IN ECCLESIOLOGY: THE “NEW” NEO-THOMISM In a recent issue of the journal Horizons, Daniel Rober helpfully identifies the influence of a “new” neo-Thomism and its substantial influence within ecclesiastical and seminary circles over the last two decades12. Although the importance of St. Thomas and his work cannot be responsibly downplayed within the context of Roman Catholic theology, the hegemony of a particular interpretation of his thought, as well as a corresponding diminishment of the insights gained through newer approaches to theology, have made this “new” neo-Thomism particularly frustrating for the growth of an authentically ecumenical approach to ecclesiology. This form of Thomism is a particular reconstruction of Aquinas, which now often functions as the gateway to continuity within the history of Church teaching13.

11. For discussion of the expansive interpretations of magisterial authority through the use of digital media (as well as the test case of the interpretation of LG 8 in DI), see A.J. GODZIEBA, Quaestio Disputata: The Magisterium in an Age of Digital Reproduction, in R. GAILLARDETZ (ed.), When the Magisterium Intervenes: The Magisterium and Theologians in Today’s Church, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2012, 140-153. 12. D. ROBER, Engaging the Neo-Thomist Revival: Considerations and Consequences for Theology and the Church, in Horizons 42 (2015) 262-294. The influence of this movement is anchored in the US through institutions such as the Dominican House of Studies (and its Thomistic Institute) and the Catholic University of America, and in Europe, where the University of Fribourg in Switzerland and the Dominican institutions in Toulouse play similar roles in extending the influence of new neo-Thomism. Moreover, each of these centers has been aided in their efforts with various publishers and seminaries helping to entrench the movement within the ranks of the clergy. 13. Proponents of this “new” neo-Thomism often fight for the fundamental “continuity” of the Church’s self-understanding and teaching at the Second Vatican Council; see, e.g., M.L. LAMB – M. LEVERING (eds.), Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008 and IID. (eds.), The Reception of Vatican II, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017.

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Prominent among the “new” neo-Thomists in the field of ecclesiology is the French Dominican, Benoît-Dominique de la Soujeole, who has provided a seminary course on the dogma of the Church, a course that seems to mirror the manuals of the early part of the last century (though with considerable attention to the doctrine of the Church expounded at the Second Vatican Council) rather than the ecclesiological advances of the last part of the century14. In this text, de la Soujeole makes a strong case for a contemporary dogmatic approach to a more systematic understanding of the Church, but one cannot help but notice that, for example, he argues for a sacramental approach to the Church that is very much, “from above”15, for “[j]ust as in Christology, it is necessary to have an ecclesiology from ‘on high’”16. It is precisely this “high descending” approach to ecclesiology that produces some of the same blind spots in Christology about which Rahner rightly warned over a half century ago – viz., an ahistorical purely dogmatic account that ironically distorts rather than amplifies the dogma itself17. At the outset of his ecclesiology, de la Soujeole states that his work is guided by recommendations of the Decree on Priestly Training (Optatum Totius 16): “Dogmatic theology should be based on a solid theology of sources (positive theology) followed by speculative theology that grasps the interconnection of the mysteries of salvation with the help of St. Thomas”. The book sets out to construct a “theology” of the Church, one that is thoroughly grounded in the data of God’s Trinitarian selfcommunication in Christ and the Spirit and aims toward a scientific synthesis “in which the partial and derived truths are reconnected to those that explain them (first truths or sources), and altogether these truths will make up the supreme truth”. The result is the formation of students who are “faithful and far-sighted stewards of the treasures that God wants to give us and, through us, to all mankind [sic]”18. In his Introduction to the Mystery of the Church, de la Soujeole offers what is probably one of the best attempts at responsibly integrating the new neo-Thomism into contemporary (or at least post-Vatican II)

14. B.-D. DE LA SOUJEOLE, Introduction to the Mystery of the Church, trans. M. MILLER (Thomistic Ressourcement, 3), Washington, DC, Catholic University of America Press, 2014. 15. Ibid., pp. 321-322. 16. B.-D. DE LA SOUJEOLE, The Economy of Salvation: Entitive Sacramentality and Operative Sacramentality, in The Thomist 75 (2011) 537-553, p. 552. 17. K. RAHNER, Current Problems in Christology, in Theological Investigations, trans. C. ERNST, vol. 1, London, Darton, Longman & Todd, 21965, 149-200. 18. DE LA SOUJEOLE, Introduction to the Mystery of the Church (n. 14), p. 5.

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ecclesiology. Yet, that effort remains notably weak, not for what it does but for what it fails to do. Of the contemporary Dominican voices he chooses to include (mainly Congar and Schillebeeckx), the absence of Gustavo Gutiérrez is remarkable and telling. Though Gutiérrez does not offer a comprehensive study of systematic ecclesiology, he remains one of the most influential thinkers on ecclesiology in the latter half of the twentieth century precisely because of his focus on the lived realities of the most marginalized communities as they work to enact the gospel and “do” Church under the most challenging circumstances. The experience, commitment, and reflections of these Christians become, for Gutiérrez, the decisive criterion for ecclesiological claims. At the behest of Joseph Komonchak, one might rightly ask de la Soujeole: “Who Are the Church”19? But unfortunately, de la Soujeole leaves that provocative question largely unaddressed, and the consequence of its omission is the obfuscation of the precise relationship between the dogma of the Church and the actual living conditions of the Christian faithful and their mission in the world. It remains unclear “how this book might serve the self-understanding of all those who form the Church and are integral to the realization of its mission in the present day”20. On the whole, de la Soujeole offers an intellectually robust but altogether abstract account of the Church, one that is divorced from the concrete history of sin and redemption in the world and the Church itself21. Moreover, the ecclesiological humility one might expect in an ecumenical context, and a context far more conscious of the sexual, political, and financial scandals that seem to continually rock the Church in recent decades, are all but absent. The ecclesiological humility of the book takes the form of the Parable of the Talents (Matt 25,14-30): “To whom much is given (i.e., the Catholic Church) much is expected”22. Surely, there is a way to talk about the Church that reflects the lives of the faithful and their struggles (failures?), a way that reflects the ambiguities and conflicts of history, while at the same time affirming the life of grace and the Church as the gift of the Spirit and not simply a human institution.

19. J.A. KOMONCHAK, Who Are the Church? (The Père Marquette Lecture in Theology, 39), Milwaukee, WI, Marquette University Press, 2008. 20. R. LENNAN, Review of Introduction to the Mystery of the Church, by B.-D. DE LA SOUJEOLE, O.P., in Horizons 43 (December 2016) 411-413. 21. See JOHN PAUL II, Incarnationis mysterium (1998) and ITC, Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past (1999). 22. See DE LA SOUJEOLE, Introduction to the Mystery of the Church (n. 14), p. 122.

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III. A DIALECTIC TREND IN POPULAR ECCLESIOLOGY Since the first centuries of the Christian Church, binaries have been useful in the rhetoric of parenesis and kerygmatic summons – one need only read the Pauline and Johannine literature to find examples. Yet, binaries have also been equally problematic insofar as they promote a bifurcation of reality into a dualism and an identity politics (e.g., Montanists, Donatists, Cathars, Jansenists, etc.). The identity politics born of this dualism, however, often masquerades in the contemporary setting of Western Europe and North America as a pious integralism that creates a binary with any divergence identified as the dangerous “other”. In this century, the so-called “secular” has served as an important and often diabolical opponent (e.g., in Radical Orthodoxy and much of the neoconservative Catholic alliance in the United States). The “not too numerous centre” is often abandoned in the effort to recover the most radical dimensions of Christian life, and the inertia that swings to the extreme imposes itself anew regularly – in the present situation it takes the form of a culture war centered on sexuality and marriage and has as its most vocal champions powerful and thoughtful writers with no formal theological training or commitment to its practice23. These champions are often concerned that the Church has been tragically influenced to embrace a self-critical attitude toward its teaching and practice, and in this self-criticism, the Church then accommodates itself to the present age. Rod Dreher’s book, The Benedict Option, has had a significant impact on the thinking of many prominent Church leaders and even some theologians24. Dreher blends a critique of Vatican II ecclesiology with an apocalyptic account of the secular agenda and its diabolic attack on Christian culture and values. The book has been a rallying point for many, especially in the United States, who consider the Christian Church, and especially the Catholic Church, far too accommodationist when it comes to modern secular culture. For Dreher, the central issue is that the corruption and decay of culture has inaugurated a new “Dark Age” bereft of ethical norms and a common understanding of the goods of

23. There are, of course, notable allies in the guild of theologians (see, e.g., J.M. MURDOCH, The New Jansenism: A Pessimism That Would Canonize All, in First Things [February 21, 2017] at https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/02/ the-new-jansenism, though in equating the supporters of Amoris Laetitia with “a new Jansenism”, Murdoch makes a very odd theological move. Needless to say, Murdoch’s equivocation is not endorsed in the present essay). 24. R. DREHER, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation, New York, Sentinel, 2017.

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human society. Central to his argument is the hegemony of moral relativism and the emergence of a secular, and even (homo)sexual, agenda to which the Church has begun to accommodate itself, and this accommodation threatens both the life of the Church and its mission in the world. New York Times columnist and cultural critic, Ross Douthat, joins Dreher in locating what he sees as a pernicious accomodationism (and even a moral relativism) at the heart of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, and throughout a large portion of the Christian Church in general, and along with Dreher, has enjoyed widespread approval among influential Catholics as well as others. The Dreher-Douthat outlook has important ecclesiastical supporters, most notably Charles Chaput, the current Archbishop of Philadelphia25. Chaput’s endorsement of Dreher-Douthat resonates with Milbank and Hauerwas on the dialectical tensions inherent in the Church’s relationship with the modern world, especially the world as its values are expressed within the academic community, broadly understood. Although the contemporary political realm seems to be largely lost to the Church, now the cultural battles have focused on academic communities with a more sectarian vision taking hold, one that sees the secular state as an adversary that must be kept at bay26. “It’s time for a Christian to recognize the danger [of secularism] and begin creating a Christian academic counterculture”27. The battle lines are drawn, but the fight seems less to involve the proclamation of God’s love and mercy, a redemptive transformation of human society and a world of sin and suffering, and is more concerned with the defence of specific truths. In his proposal, Dreher, in particular, fails to adequately note the contributions of many robust institutions of higher learning and research where advances in scientific research and theology continue to make significant contributions to the mission of the Church in the world. Perhaps the fault that lies at the heart of Dreher’s proposal is a failure fully to appreciate, in the tradition of western Christianity, the authentic demands of faith and reason – demands that run in both directions. In his 1998 encyclical, Fides et ratio, John Paul II powerfully articulated the 25. See, C. CHAPUT, Strangers in a Strange Land: Living the Catholic Faith in a PostChristian World, New York, Holt, 2017, p. 2. The author cites as motivation for the book the US Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v Hodges (June 2105) allowing the recognition of same-sex marriage. 26. In the United States, the cultivation of a Libertarian ethos in government and business has supplanted the vision of “Americanist” activists of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (e.g., John Ireland and John Ryan). 27. DREHER, The Benedict Option (n. 24), p. 171.

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principle in which the call for responsible and free inquiry at a Catholic university is grounded. The Church has no philosophy of her own, nor does she canonize one particular philosophy over another [; rather,] philosophy must remain faithful to its own principles and methods … At the deepest level, the autonomy which philosophy enjoys is rooted in the fact that reason is by its nature oriented to truth and is equipped moreover with the means to arrive at truth (no. 49).

While the Church’s magisterium may correct philosophical insights when they are judged to have taken a “wrong turn”, this is “intended to prompt, promote and encourage philosophical enquiry” (no. 51). And it is the spirit of inquiry, open and free, dialogical inquiry that allows theology and the Church itself to function properly in relation to the world. The Benedict Option includes notable and noble insights into the state of the Church in relation to contemporary culture and politics, and it rightly expresses concerns about the threat of an easy accomodationism. But the “Benedict option” per se represents a persistent attempt to invert the very particular charism of religious life to make it normative for the life of the Church as a whole (one sees this in the creation of many experiments in communal living across the spectrum of the Christian tradition). Such a move distorts both the “catholic” or universal mission of the Church in and to the world and the role of religious life in relationship to that mission. To confuse one with the other, or to collapse one into the other leads to a sectarian marginalization rather than a sacramental engagement with the world. Dreher and Douthat’s vision finds support among conservatives of a variety of denominations (e.g., Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Reformed, Anabaptist, etc.), but their vision of the Church and its mission might be said to be narrowly interdenominational rather than truly ecumenical and therefore “catholic”. And in the end, their vision of the Church resonates with a vision of the Church centered on the reproductive-family with the larger world and secular government kept at a distance28.

28. For an account of the origins of the ecclesial centrality of the reproductive-family, see J. CHAPPEL Catholic Modern: The Challenge of Totalitarianism and the Remaking of the Church, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2018, pp. 59-107.

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IV. A PERFORMATIVE (AND MORE ACCURATE) APPROACH TO ECCLESIOLOGY The battle lines drawn up by Dreher and Douthat, the CDF’s vision of the Church expressed in DI, and the approach to ecclesiology “from above”, represented ably by Soujeole, privilege a formal and normative, rather than empirical-historical-practical, approach to ecclesiology, and it is precisely this privileging that contributes to the perceived hubris of Catholic ecclesiology and diminishes its authentically universal mission29. This hubris, in turn, threatens to compromise or even ultimately to frustrate potentially bold and imaginative cooperation among Christian Churches for the sake of the world and therefore represents the real danger to the Church’s mission and its identity. Gerard Mannion has argued for what might be termed a low ecclesiology, one that begins not with the scaffolding of Church structures and reflections on the Trinitarian relations, nor with any ecclesiology “from above”30. Rather, Mannion sees the performative aspects of Church, especially the performance of virtue, as foundational for ecclesiology31. As such, history and self-critical reflection become the foundations for growth in ecclesiology and in the practice of the Church as a virtue ethic. To be sure, Mannion wants to differentiate his efforts from those of Stanley Hauerwas, who Mannion claims has misconstrued virtue ethics in a manner that creates the insular “resident aliens” approach to Church and Christian virtue that isolates the Church and leaves it cut off from the dialogical and self-critical engagements that make the Church effectively the Church in history32. Since, for Mannion, a virtue ecclesiology is fundamentally sociological in its orientations, it will focus on moral norms that require historical hermeneutical communities that foster the cultivation and discernment of virtue in concrete circumstances. Mannion’s critique of the ontological approach to ecclesiology is amplified and nuanced in the recent contributions to ecclesiology from Neil Ormerod. Ormerod brings the theoretical contributions of Joseph Komonchak and Robert Doran (both of whom amplify the work of

29. In his introductory chapter (p. 5), de la Soujeole curiously forecasts a place for the social sciences in his course, but there seems to be no real payoff here except for some general references to sociology and social philosophy in the discussion of The People of God; see, Introduction to the Mystery of the Church (n. 14), pp. 235-240. 30. G. MANNION, Ecclesiology and Postmodernity: Questions for the Church in Our Time, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2007. 31. Ibid., p. 195. 32. See ibid., Chapter 9.

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Bernard Lonergan) to life by re-visioning ecclesiology from the data of the Church’s actions in human history, focusing on the virtues of the Church in its discernment and enactment of “soteriological” values33. His method represents an important and even pivotal contribution to a systematic ecclesiology, one that stands simultaneously as a framework for, and an invitation to, further research and collaboration. At the outset, Ormerod specifies that a systematic ecclesiology is qualified as empirical/historical, critical, normative, dialectic, and practical. His methodology addresses the proper role of the social sciences in relation to theology, and Ormerod is not naïve about the way contemporary sociology has been freighted by various ideologies. He critically unmasks the ideological distortions of the social sciences, distortions that have emerged from myopic secularists on the one hand and from the caricatures offered by contemporary theologians (e.g., John Milbank) on the other. In doing so, Ormerod makes room for an account of the organic relationship between theology and the social sciences, rending an explanatory account of the origins of Church structures and practices34. At the origin of the Church stand Jesus and his proclamation of the kingdom. This proclamation occupies a central place in Ormerod’s presentation as he employs Robert Doran’s account of the scale of values to bring this proclamation into a more explanatory and theoretical focus, providing an account of the history of the Church in terms of sin/decline and redemptive recovery35. These personal, social, and cultural values involve the reconciliation or integration of the two poles of human existence: limit and transcendence. The skewing of the dialectics that comprise these values represents the distortions, reverse insights, and the surd – the unintelligible – in human history. On the other hand, however, the perfection or integrity of this scale of values (in light of the experience of grace and corresponding religious values) supplies a theoretical framework for irreducibly categorizing the proclamation of the kingdom of God, but in a way that renders this proclamation intelligible and explanatory in light of the social sciences. For example, Ormerod uses the scale of values to shed light on the mission and ministerial structures 33. N. ORMEROD, Re-Visioning the Church: An Experiment in Systematic-Historical Ecclesiology, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 2014. See also, J.A. KOMONCHAK, Foundations in Ecclesiology (Supplement to the Lonergan Workshop Journal, 11), Boston, MA, Lonergan Workshop, 1995. 34. For a succinct presentation of these ideas see, N. ORMEROD, Ecclesiology and the Social Sciences, in G. MANNION – L. MUDGE (eds.), Routledge Companion to the Christian Church, New York, Routledge, 2008, 639-654. 35. See R.M. DORAN, Theology and the Dialectics of History, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1990, Ch. 4.

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of the Church, especially as the threefold ministry of bishop, priest, and deacon emerges in the Church’s history to meet practical exigencies. The Church meets these exigencies by being attentive to the concrete and historical circumstances and the essential nature of its mission, and it is through this genetic account of ministry that the ingenuity of the Christian Church becomes apparent. With such an account of ministry, one might be able to nuance claims about the role and place of “ministries” and “offices” in the Church – mitigating facile and excessively formal notions of how the Church (and its structures of ministry) do and do not change. The Church’s struggle to mediate soteriological values – self-sacrificing love and new life that is a share in God’s own life – within a thoroughly cosmological culture, and then through the demands of anthropologicallyfocused culture, one attentive to the intentions and moral obligation of human beings, brings together the data of Church history and the theoretical insights and normative values developed in conjunction with Jesus’ life and proclamation. He moves on to address the modern context of the Church as dominated by the skewing of culture through the disintegration of what Lonergan and Doran call, “cultural values”. Modernity’s embrace of a thoroughly anthropological culture left the Church identified with cosmological culture in a way that moved the Church into an emphasis on ecclesial identity, one that fixed social and cultural forms following the post-Reformation centuries and compromised the Church’s ability to effectively adapt its form to the demands of the new culture and therein mediate soteriological meanings and values. Instead, the Church seems to be inclined to surrender to the identity politics that has given rise to counter-cultural “wedge issues” like opposition to homosexual marriage and artificial contraception alongside the promotion of the Latin Mass and distinctive forms of piety. V. CONCLUSION Catholic humility in ecclesiology seems to center on the parable of tenants in Matthew: to whom much is given much is expected. Such an approach to ecclesiology, from a practical and ecumenical perspective, seems to do little to actually further the proclamation of the gospel in the world, particularly as post-Christian and highly plural cultures actually expect less and less from the Church. An authentically ecumenical and therefore truly “catholic” ecclesiology must begin with a responsible soteriological criterion, placing the work and the order of the Church

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under the judgment of this criterion. This way of approaching ecclesiology need not (and does not) deny any of the central affirmations found in DI, the work of de la Soujeole, or the authentic ecclesiological insights embedded within Dreher-Douthat. The days of demanding the obedience of faith, however, and the training pastors and leaders to valorize the certainty of ecclesiological abstractions ought to give way to an approach to ecclesiology that is no less normative, but one that centers on soteriological values and embraces a performative self-definition: the Church is what the Church does. Ormerod’s commitment to the incarnational and empirical dimensions of sociological and historical research effectively introduces readers to a systematic approach to ecclesiology while giving an insightful analysis of the Catholic Church’s current situation, as its mission is threatened with a counterfeit and dubious theology that thinly masks a politics of identity. This more empirical and incarnational approach opens up the discussion of “how to do Church” – a discussion that can be imaginative without becoming whimsical or flimsy – and this discussion will better serve the Church as it stands in desperate need of soteriological and ecclesial imagination. Saint Vincent College Department of Theology Latrobe, PA 15650 USA [email protected]

Christopher MCMAHON

MINISTRY WITH “LARGE EARS” APPROACHES TO DYNAMIC AFRICAN PATTERNS OF REFORM AND RENEWAL IN THE CHURCH TODAY

I. INTRODUCTION The Catholic Church in Africa has gone through two highly publicized synods: the Synods of Bishops for Africa, 1994 and 2009. The initial intuition that led to these two synods, it must be noted, was for an African (regional) Council on African soil, like the regional African councils in the time of Cyprian and Augustine. Credit for the intuition of the African Council (that never was held) goes partly to Alioune Diop (founder of the publishing house Présence africaine) as initiator. The detailed outline of the agenda was laid out by Fabien Eboussi Boulaga (during a conference organized by the Société africaine de Culture in Abidjan in 1977). The agenda covered diverse aspects of African Catholic identity, and of the mission and pastoral program of the Church in Africa1. What the Catholic Church celebrated in Rome, in 1994 and 2009, were Roman synods of bishops for the Church in Africa. The two synods are lauded for setting the tone for reimagining the Church as family of God for the re-evangelization and healing of wounds in the Church and among peoples of Africa through the search for reconciliation and the practice of justice and peace. The exhortations Ecclesia in Africa2 and Africae Munus3 highlight important conclusions from the synods, but also testify to the Roman character or control of post-Vatican II synod of bishops. However, the two synods lacked the type of agenda and the diversified participation by the membership of the African Catholic Church as proposed by Eboussi. 1. F. EBOUSSI BOULAGA, Pour une catholicité africaine (Étapes et Organisation), in Civilisation noire et église catholique: Colloque d’Abidjan, 12-17 Septembre 1977, Paris, Présence africaine; Dakar, Les nouvelles éditions africaines, 1978, 331-370. After the convocation (1989) of the Synod of Bishops for Africa, the article of Eboussi Boulaga was republished in E. BOULAGA, À contretemps: L’enjeu de Dieu en Afrique, Paris, Karthala, 1991, 57-105. 2. Available online, http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_exhortations/ documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_14091995_ecclesia-in-africa.html. 3. Available online, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhortations/ documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20111119_africae-munus.html.

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This essay suggests that despite the important results or outcomes of the 1994 and 2009 synods, the synods fell short of the expectations of the initial intuitions of the Council of the Catholic Church in Africa (1977)4. The sustained call by African Bishops (during the Second Vatican Council) for a truly local or regional African church within a juridically restructured Western patriarchate are not captured by the two synods5. This essay on reform and renewal focuses attention on the post-Vatican II and post-independence African Churches of the 1970s. The intent is to point to the creative dynamism demonstrated by the bishops of Africa in the 1970s as the practical performance of reform or renewal within a true catholica. The conclusion is that this performance is good for Africa and the whole Catholic world. The exercise of frank conversation characteristic of the proverbial “palaver tree” (l’arbre à palabre) that was evident in the 1970s is the route to “true reform” for the local African church and the “universal” Church6. (The freedom exercised in this site, the meeting of minds and spirits, were able to move discussants and the whole community towards the resolution of crucial and even highly divisive issues for the benefit of all. Jean-Marc Ela successfully reimagined a liberation-contextual theology emerging from the frank conversations around l’arbre à palabre)7. Second, the essay applauds the option of Pope Francis for a sound “decentralization” (Evangelii Gaudium 16). But the essay will argue that “sound decentralization” as displayed in the post-Vatican II and postindependence churches of Africa of the 1970s, is governed by the “palaver tree” template: the domain of indigenous African socio-religious and political imaginative creativity. The Word that emerges from that zone of frank conversation is the base of “true” freedom of the children of 4. EBOUSSI BOULAGA, À contretemps (n. 1), p. 71. 5. René Luneau at the end of his book on the 1994 synod reviewed the monumental problems African peoples and the African Church face and queries whether these do not require the convocation of a Council. R. LUNEAU, Paroles et silences du Synode africain, 1989-1995 (Collection chrétiens en liberté. Questions disputées), Paris, Karthala, 1997, pp. 225ff. Ignace Ndongala rather than arguing for “autonomy” that dominated conversations in the African Church in the 1970s prefers the idea of “African regional churches” with clearly defined juridical powers. I. NDONGALA MADUKU, Pour des Églises régionales en Afrique, Paris, Karthala, 1999. 6. Yves Congar lays out patterns of “true reform” in the Church that goes along the logic of “ressourcement”: Y. CONGAR, True and False Reform in the Church, trans. P. PHILIBERT, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2011. 7. This is a feature of Ela’s writings. But see in particular the relevant sections on episcopal conferences. Chapter 14, Les évêques d’Afrique sous-contrôle de la curie romaine, in J.-M. ELA, Repenser la théologie africaine: Le Dieu qui libère, Paris, Karthala, 2003.

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God, the sphere of true reform and renewal. Consequently, Pope Francis’ call for “decentralization” suggests to the Church leadership in Africa the recovery and reinvention of the dormant potentialities of the Catholic and indigenous African resources of the 1970s. This will set aside the uniformization building up since the 1980s and move world Catholicism forward to operate within the palaver tree model to realize true renewal and reform beyond polemics. In making these two points, I take up and develop the arguments for the priority of listening presented in A Listening Church (1996)8. The practices of the African bishops in the 1970s could be aligned to the wishes of Pope Francis to rekindle enthusiasm and dynamism in the churches of Africa, beyond excessive centralization and uniformization. II. ECCLESIA REFORMANDA: INSPIRATIONAL AFRICAN RESOURCES FOR REFORM AND RENEWAL The experience of the African Catholic Church in the 1970s, culminating at the 1974 Synod of Bishops on evangelization and the fourth general assembly of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) in 1975, is inspirational. It blazes the trail for reform and renewal in the Church. The experience showed the African Church leadership assuming responsibility for the life and mission of the Church. During the 1975 SECAM assembly in Rome, Church leaders presented their plan of action for Church renewal and growth, confirming a highly imaginative but focused reception of Vatican II in the African Church. They chose collaborative ministry and rejected clericalism. They rejected the “moratorium” on mission and evangelism, as defined by the Protestant All African Conference of Churches in their pursuit of being “self-supporting, self-propagating and self-governing”. While rejecting the “moratorium” that called for the radical suspension of financial aid and the supply of foreign (Euro-American) missionaries to enable the local African churches to assume full administrative powers, the Bishops of SECAM insisted on mission and evangelization in co-responsibility9. They proposed fraternal communion among the churches but rejected 8. E.E. UZUKWU, A Listening Church: Autonomy and Communion in African Churches, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 1996. 9. Eboussi Boulaga published an article in Spiritus (1974) that was fully in support of the moratorium. He called for the orderly departure of missionaries. This position was clearly rejected by the Bishops of Africa assembled at the 1974 synod. But this did not prevent the bishops from stating their position on co-responsibility. F. EBOUSSI-BOULAGA,

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the excessive centralization dominant in the Roman Church. They embraced collegiality and demurred on the “unitary state” structure characteristic of the Church of the Latin patriarchate. Did Karl Rahner not rightly say, “Neither in practice nor ideally is the church a systematically administered unitary state”10? Joseph Ratzinger even is supposed to have agreed11. The position of the SECAM Bishops, which constituted an act of reception of Vatican II and an exercise of a “truly collegiate action” (Christus Dominus 4), implies a desire for enabling canonical instruments for the realization of an effective “collegial” church performance like the ancient patriarchal churches referred to in Vatican II (Lumen Gentium 23). It is therefore refreshing that Pope Francis is promoting a sound “decentralization” (Evangelii Gaudium 16) in the Church of the Latin rite. Compared to 1994/2009, the leadership of the Catholic Church in Africa in the 1970s opted for a clear, strong, and focused “localization” of the Church. The bishops, shepherds or pastors of the flock, could rightly be said to “take on the ‘smell of the sheep’” and the “sheep are willing to hear their voice”12. Consequently, pastoral-liturgical research and experimentation centers flourished in Congo-Zaire, Rwanda, AMECEA countries of Eastern Africa (through the Gaba Pastoral institute)13, and in French and English-speaking parts of West Africa14. The realizations of these investments in the African human sociocultural and geographical spheres speak for themselves. They are evidence of the confession of the identical Catholic faith on African lands that critically captures the La démission, in Spiritus 56 (1974) 276-287. See my discussion on co-responsibility and inculturation in UZUKWU, A Listening Church (n. 8), pp. 62ff. 10. See L.M. ORSY, Receiving the Council: Theological and Canonical Insights and Debates, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2009, p. 32. Quoting from A. VAN GENNEP, Culte populaire des saints en Savoie: Recueil d’articles d’Arnold van Gennep, Paris, G.-P. Maisonneuve & Larose, 1973, pp. 105-106. 11. See Y. CONGAR, Le pape comme patriarche d’Occident: Approche d’une réalité trop négligée, in Istina 28 (1983) 374-390. 12. See FRANCIS, Evangelii Gaudium 24; http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium. html. 13. AMECEA stands for “Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa”. It is a Catholic service organization for the National Episcopal Conferences of the eight countries of Eastern Africa, namely Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Djibouti and Somalia are affiliate members. http://amecea. org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/The-history-of-amecea.pdf. 14. I studied some of these in E. UZUKWU, Liturgy, Truly Christian, Truly African (Spearhead, 74), Eldoret, Gaba Publications – AMECEA Pastoral Institute, 1982, and in the concluding chapter of Worship as Body Language: Introduction to Christian Worship. An African Orientation, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 1997, 265-321: “Emergent creative liturgies in Africa”.

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“flesh of the Church” (Tillard), “local” or “particular”, legitimately diverse and different15. The “flesh of the Church” on African soil is displayed in its diversity, difference and Catholic identity. Some realizations illustrate this: (1) in Congo-Zaire, the inculturation of the rite of the consecration of religious women; the erection of the Bakambi in the leadership of parishes in the diocese of Kinshasa (as from 1975); the Zaire mass, approved within the Latin rite as the Roman Missal for use in the dioceses of Zaire, 1988; (2) in East Africa – under the umbrella of AMECEA – the wide ranging pastoral and liturgical formation of pastoral agents and the creativity at the Gaba Pastoral Institute; the creation and use ad experimentum, at the center, of diverse Eucharistic prayers; the very influential establishment of SCCs (Small Christian Communities); (3) in Guinea Conakry and Burkina Faso – the inculturation of the Christian rite of initiation by a radical adaptation of an array of initiation rites found among diverse ethnic groups of West Africa. (4) One could add to this list later developments in Nigeria – the Christianization of the rich Yoruba Naming Ceremony as an independent Christian rite; the inculturation of the marriage ritual in the dioceses of Ekiti and Lokoja (Yoruba and Ebira rites, in the 1990s) and in the diocese of Enugu (Igbo marriage rite, 2001)16. It is important to emphasize the visibility of the “flesh of the Church” in the exercise of freedom and creativity in postcolonial and post-Vatican II Congo-Zaire, more than anywhere else in Africa, and in the diocese of Kinshasa, under the leadership of the metropolitan, Archbishop Joseph-Albert Malula. In the 1970s, embracing true reform and renewal – organized around the rhetoric of Africanization, incarnation and rootedness within the Congo sociocultural setting – the Church displayed a creative reception of Vatican II. The case for the establishment of mokambi (plural bakambi), lay parish administrators, who are not designated as curé, parish priest, is a powerful case in point. This is one of the reform innovations of Cardinal Malula that led to his being chronicled as 15. Among important literature on “local” or “particular” churches, the terminology is still fluid, one should consult J.-M.R. TILLARD, The Local Church within Catholicity, in The Jurist 52 (1992) 448-454. Then the two books of Tillard, L’Église Locale – Ecclésiologie de communion et catholicité, Paris, Cerf, 1995 and Church of Churches: The Ecclesiology of Communion, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 1992. The state of this discussion is well summarized by Maduku through the evaluation of the thoughts of H. de Lubac, H. Legrand and J.-M.R. Tillard, MADUKU, Pour des églises régionales en Afrique (n. 5), pp. 197-214. 16. Some of these were studied in UZUKWU, Worship as Body Language (n. 14). See also P.C. CHIBUKO, Traditional Marriage and Church Wedding in One Ceremony – a Proposed Rite for Study and Celebration in Igbo and English, Enugu, SNAAP, 1999.

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the “indocile” cardinal17. At the heels of Paul VI’s Ministeria Quaedam (1972), the diocese of Kinshasa went beyond conferring ministries of acolyte and reader on laymen. It legally installed married laymen as parish administrators: based on their rights as baptized and confirmed Catholics, based on indigenous leadership of communities by elders, based on the post-Vatican II acknowledgement of the active role of laypeople in the Church (no longer simply paying, praying and obeying). The innovation was not simply an offshoot of the scarcity of ordained clergy. Against the norms of the 1917 code of canon law (still in force in 1973-75), not clearly supported by the oncoming 1983 code, the Catholic Church in Congo-Zaire (in the diocese of Kinshasa) established the bakambi, administrators of parishes, full-fledged heads of parishes with priest-animators as collaborators. This spectacular and unprecedented practice had its contours laid out and published in the Manual of the Parish Mokambi (1974: Manuel de paroisse de mokambi). In 1975, 6 bakambi were installed. Numerous studies on the canonical status of mokambi have been written18. The indocile cardinal embraced difference and independence within Catholicity. The bakambi experience continued beyond Malula’s death (in 1989), despite the opposition of Rome. The momentum was sustained though weakening under Malula’s successor (Cardinal Frédéric Etsou), and came to an end in 2010 under the current metropolitan (Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo)19. The advantage the 1970s held over 1994/2009 is that the postVatican II and post-independence climate of Church renewal and reform enjoyed institutional support. Pope Paul VI appreciated pluralism (localization) within an imperative Catholicity: “you may, and you must have an African Christianity” (Homily at Kampala, Uganda, 1969)20. Operating 17. See R. KASUBA MALU, Joseph-Albert Malula: Liberté et indocilité d’un Cardinal africain, Paris, Karthala, 2014. 18. See in addition to Malu, D. NTUMBA DIPA, Le Cardinal J.A. Malula et les ministères laïcs: Le fondement juridique des Bakambi (Séminaire de maîtrise-DCA 6795, Faculté de droit canonique Université Saint Paul 2017). See also M. MOERSCHBACHER – R. MENGUS, Les laïcs dans une Église d’Afrique: L’œuvre du Cardinal Malula (1917-1989), Paris, Karthala, 2012. 19. NTUMBA DIPA, Le Cardinal J.A. Malula et les ministères laïcs (n. 18), pp. 31-36. Laurent Monsengwo took part in the Council of Cardinals advising Pope Francis on the reform of the Roman Curia between 2013 and 2018. 20. Memorable words uttered in his homily in Kampala (Uganda), 31 July 1969 at the first meeting of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), that Churches of Africa build on and surpass: “First, your Church must be first of all Catholic. That is, it must be entirely founded upon the identical, essential, constitutional patrimony of the self-same teaching of Christ, as professed by the authentic and authoritative tradition of the one true Church … however, we now come to the second. The expression, that is, the language and mode of manifesting this one Faith, may be manifold;

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from the vantage point of l’arbre à palabre, the socio-religious and cultural human sphere of frank conversation, the bishops of Africa took Paul VI’s “African Christianity” to the level of the autonomy21 of local churches (modelled on the patriarchal churches, in the light of Lumen Gentium 23). They were prepared to frustrate Paul VI by their preferential option for an “African theology” of “incarnation” as opposed to the theology of “adaptation”22. They called for realignments in relationships and for an imperative decentralization within the Latin patriarchate. Their language was not couched in diplomatic euphemisms. Archbishop Jean Zoa of Yaoundé Cameroon declared crisply the position of the bishops of Africa: “the Episcopal Conferences claim the right to greater liberty”23. The call for autonomy of the Catholic Church in Africa moved in the direction of what Ndongala Maduku argued as the true juridically recognized “African regional churches”24, a recapture of the churches of Cyprian and Augustine. (The Church of Carthage, it must be stressed, was noted for its independence under the metropolitan primate. It always resisted Roman patriarchal claims while respecting the primacy of the Roman see)25. The situation of the 1970s is therefore in sharp contrast to the situation that prevailed in the 1990s when episcopal conferences were deemed incompetent for collegial action in the Church (see below). As a result, questions previously addressed, e.g. the inculturation of the marriage rite hence, it may be original, suited to the tongue, the style, the character, the genius, and the culture, of the one who professes this one Faith. From this point of view, a certain pluralism is not only legitimate, but desirable. An adaptation of the Christian life in the fields of pastoral, ritual, didactic and spiritual activities is not only possible, it is even favoured by the Church. The liturgical renewal is a living example of this. And in this sense you may, and you must, have an African Christianity”; https://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/ homilies/1969/documents/hf_p-vi_hom_19690731.html (accessed 19 January 2018). 21. To be understood in the collegial spirit and not in the spirit of Gallicanism or the sense in which the Ratzinger Report characterized the research done by the Ecumenical Association of African Theologians as cultural-national projects that move away from the Catholic unity. See Pope BENEDICT XVI – V. MESSORI, The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church, San Francisco, CA, Ignatius Press, 1985. See the “palaver tree” approach to the question by Ela: ELA, Repenser la théologie Africaine (n. 7), pp. 405-406. 22. UZUKWU, A Listening Church (n. 8). Through patient study of the communion ecclesiology of Vatican II and in dialogue with three Western theologians, Henri de Lubac, Hervé Legrand and Jean-Marie Roger Tillard, Maduku argues that African Church leaders were discussing the strong implications of a true local church. MADUKU, Pour des Églises régionales en Afrique (n. 5), part II. 23. J. ZOA, A Panoramic Approach to the 1974 Synod, in Acts of the Fourth Plenary Assembly of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, Held in Rome, 1975, Accra, SECAM Secretariat, 1975, esp. pp. 79-81, 87-88. See UZUKWU, A Listening Church (n. 8), p. 144. 24. MADUKU, Pour des Églises régionales en Afrique (n. 5). 25. CONGAR, Le pape comme patriarche d’Occident (n. 11), p. 379.

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deliberated upon by the SECAM assembly (Yaoundé, 1981)26, are reopened at the synod of 1994 as if they have never been discussed. 1. “Large Ears”, the Paradigm for Reform and Renewal The point made in A Listening Church (1996) is that indigenous African patterns of socio-religious and political engineering could provide a paradigm shift for reform or renewal in the Church. The large eared rabbit (or the hare), the totem of the Manja chief of the Central African Republic, provides a highly imaginative paradigm for a radical shift in the style of leadership in the Catholic Church. Adopting the “large-eared” style will lead to a creative appropriation of the family-of-God Church model, in the image of the Trinitarian family, proposed by the 1994 synod. The leadership with “large ears”, in the Church-Family, engages in frank/ open conversation or dialogue governed by the “palaver tree” template. The post-Vatican II African Church of the 1970s practiced dialogue and conversation in two creative ways: first through the pursuit of reform and renewal in the regional churches of Africa (realizing part of the objectives of being “self-supporting, self-propagating and self-governing”)27. Second, through their call for change in relationships in the Catholic Church, precisely in the Latin patriarchate. These two creative ways are, I suggest, ways of the true reception of Vatican II. The African churches hold the identical faith in difference or diversity. Their creativity is “catholic” and “local” because they draw the energy for renewal and updating, aggiornamento, from the “essential, constitutional patrimony” of the Catholic Church and, as Paul VI said, from “the character, the genius” of African traditions. 2. “Large Ears” Paradigm in Tandem with Ressourcement During the preparatory stage and the sessions of Vatican II, aggiornamento was understood to go hand in hand with ressourcement – the return to the sources of Tradition28. Ressourcement, from the perspective of the churches of Africa, embraces, on the one hand, the totality of the Christian inspirational texts and practices of the Great Catholic Tradition. On the other hand, the sources include the totality of the inspirational African 26. See Acts of the Sixth Plenary Assembly of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar. Held in Yaounde, June 29 – July 5, 1981, Accra, SECAM Secretariat, 1981. 27. See C.P. WILLIAMS, The Ideal of the Self-Governing Church: A Study in Victorian Missionary Strategy (Studies in Christian Mission, 1), Leiden – New York, Brill, 1990. 28. See G. FLYNN – P.D. MURRAY, Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theology, Oxford – New York, Oxford University Press, 2013.

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socio-religious, political and economic and cultural treasury: Africa’s “structures of human relationships” and “the quality and valuation of its own existence, and modes of managing its environment”29 imperative for the renewal and transformation of Africa and the world. The “large” listening ears is an arresting imagery to capture Africa’s “structures of human relationships”. The location of the conversation, oftentimes romanticized, is the arbre à palabre (the palaver tree), the sphere of the meeting not only of minds-hearts of the community but of humans and spirits (trees served as shrines or altars of sacrifice)30. For the outsider these “structures of human relationships”, the “genius” of African traditions, are adaptable to the great Catholic tradition without rocking the boat (Paul VI). But for the insider, they constitute the core of the “flesh of the Church” that englobes the incarnational, the cultural, the traditions and the totality of the human geographical terrain (Tillard). The Church of God as “people of God” or the diocese as “portion of the people of God”, led by its bishop and presbyterium, constitutes this “particular” or “local” church celebrating the sacraments (Eucharist). Tillard argues from Lumen Gentium and Christus Dominus that “portion” is used by Vatican II to ensure one does not misunderstand “part” as of the “whole”. Rather, “portion” captures the “totality” of the universal. Here the “local” is “pars pro toto” not “pars in toto”: the universal Church fully manifested in a specific place31. Despite their differences Joseph Ratzinger and Walter Kasper basically agree on the simultaneity (perichoresis) of the universal and the local: “the universal Church exists ‘in and from’ the local church, and the local churches exist ‘in and from’ the universal Church”32. Augustine of Hippo saw this with clarity: People do not abandon their geographical space or their lands to come to the Lord but they confess the faith in the Lord in their lands. “But how will that prophecy otherwise be fulfilled, All the nations whom you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord (Ps 86,9)? For they will 29. Touching expressions inspired by W. SOYINKA, Of Africa, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2012, pp. vii-viii. 30. The importance of trees as shrines, centers for the gathering of peoples all over Africa is captured in the collective work edited by J.O. KEHINDE OLUPONA (ed.), African Spirituality: Forms, Meanings, and Expressions, vol. 3, New York, Crossroad, 2000. See in particular, B. RAY, African Shrines as Channels of Communication (chapter 2), and D. WESTERLUND, Spiritual Beings as Agents of Illness (chapter 7). 31. See TILLARD, L’Église locale (n. 15), pp. 284-285. Tillard is criticizing the abandonment of “local church” by the 1983 Code of Canon Law in favor of “particular” churches. Tillard supports the position taken by Vatican II in LG 23, CD 11 and AG 22. See also MADUKU, Pour des Églises régionales en Afrique (n. 5). 32. The positions are convincingly presented by K. MCDONNELL, The Ratzinger/ Kasper Debate: The Universal Church and Local Churches, in Theological Studies 63 (2002) 227-250. On simultaneity, see pp. 247-248.

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not come by migrating from their own places but by believing in their own places”33. Therefore it comes as no surprise that the bishops of the “Church of God” confessing the one faith in the Lord in African lands opted for an “incarnational” African theology. It is also not surprising that from these African resources, one moves towards structural reform in the life of the Church, first on the continent and then in the entire worldwide Catholic community. The post-Vatican II climate of the Catholic Church in Africa was bustling with the two essential lungs of ressourcement. Where Paul VI insisted on fidelity to “the identical, essential, constitutional patrimony of the self-same teaching of Christ, as professed by the authentic and authoritative tradition of the one true Church” (1969 Homily in Kampala). Bishop Sangu of Mbeya, Tanzania, captured the “flesh of the Church” (at the 1974 synod) by affirming, on the one hand, the fidelity of the Church leadership to the Holy Father; and, on the other hand, the respect for and empowerment of Episcopal conferences34. Bishop Jean Zoa was blunt: “the episcopal conferences claim the right to greater liberty” (underlined in the original). This is the right to the “truly collegiate action” of Christus Dominus 4. The directness of the above statements, the language of the arbre à palabre, is rooted in Africa’s sacred history embedded in African Traditional Religions (ATR). ATR must not be misread with Africae Munus (2009) as “a form of mediation between man and immanence” or anthropological faith35. Rather the ATR communal assembly under the palaver tree constitutes the theater where “God spoke to our ancestors” (cf. Heb 1,1), where one learns by listening to the ancestral ethics of “fidelity and conviction” (Sarpong). Such “listening” on the socio-religious, economic and political arena challenges Church and society: “the word of mouth”, says Bishop Peter Kwesi Sarpong, “was considered much

33. Letter 199: 12,47. See AUGUSTINE, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century. Part 2: Letters, trans. R. TESKE, vol. 3: Letters 156-210, Brooklyn, NY, City Press, 1990, p. 350. Quoted in important studies on ecclesiology, e.g. G. ALBERIGO, Chrétienté et culture dans l’histoire de l’Église, in G. RUGGIERI, Église et Histoire de l’Église en Afrique: Actes du Colloque de Bologne, 22-25 Octobre 1988 (Bibliothèque Beauchesne: Religions, Société, Politique, 18), Paris, Beauchesne, 1990, ix-xxv, p. xi. Also in MADUKU, Pour des Églises Régionales en Afrique (n. 5), p. 212. 34. J.D. SANGU, SECAM and Evangelisation in Africa, in Acts (n. 23), p. 103. 35. See Africae Munus 92; this document has very little positive appreciation of indigenous African religions. See on the contrary P. KWESI SARPONG, Can Christianity Dialogue with African Traditional Religion? http://www.afrikaworld.net/afrel/sarpong. html (accessed 16 June 2015).

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more sacred than the written word is now”; “to break a verbal oath is one of the greatest felonies in Asante”36. Listening to the great Catholic tradition, by sitting around the palaver tree, assures leadership with “large ears”, displays the “immensity of the word” that belongs to the community37; the word that is “‘too large’ for the mouth” of one individual leader, one spokesperson, “linguist” or “a talking mouth”38. In contemporary Africa, where violence and discrimination are rife, community building and peacebuilding need to recapture this Word: the “life-giving Word which creates and recreates the community”; the incarnate word rooted in the very soil of our Land. Thanks to the palaver tree, this Word that gives Life means “truthfulness, fairness, honesty, communication”39. It is the word that generates renewal and reform of Church and world.

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The vibrancy of the arbre à palabre template in the performance of African regional or local churches bears witness to true difference or diversity, and the need for true reform and renewal in the one Catholic Church. The AMECEA practice of Small Christian Communities that intends collaborative ministry was adopted in principle by SECAM. Pastoral needs that become manifest when pastors are one with the sheep and endorse the smell of the sheep increased the urgent call for reform in the 1970s. For example, the reality of “Eucharistic famine” that deprived communities of their competence as Eucharistic communities, increased the urgency of the call for reform in ministry in the Church. Following the frank speech pattern of the arbre à palabre, Bishop A. Bayala of Koudougou (Burkina Faso) enunciated the position of the Burkinabe conference on the ordination of viri probati to facilitate Eucharistic celebration: “We maintain the declarations previously pronounced by our delegation to the synod [of 1974], relating to the 36. Ibid. 37. This statement is inspired by the resources of the Manja ethnic group of Central African Republic and the Bambara people of Mali. 38. The Asante have a saying that every king has “a talking mouth”. See R.B. FISHER, West African Religious Traditions – Focus on the Akan of Ghana, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 1998, chapter 2. 39. See UZUKWU, A Listening Church (n. 8). See also L.-V. THOMAS – R. LUNEAU, Les religions d’Afrique Noire: Textes et traditions sacrées, Paris, Stock, 1981, vol. 1, p. 28.

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ordination of married men and the ‘ad tempus’ priesthood; we shall always be loyal to the decisions of Rome”40. The declaration of the Burkinabe delegation to the 1974 synod is not the first time the question of the ordination of viri probati was raised. During the first synod of Bishops (1967: On the Ministerial Priesthood, Ultimis temporibus), two formulas were proposed to the vote of the Synod Fathers on the ordination of married men. Formula A: Excepting always the right of the supreme pontiff, the priestly ordination of married men is not permitted, even in particular cases. Formula B: It belongs solely to the supreme pontiff, in particular cases, by reason of pastoral needs and the good of the universal church to allow the priestly ordination of married men, who are of mature age and proven life41.

It is interesting that in the endnote (endnote no. 3), the editors indicated: “According to the directives of the Presidents the vote was taken not by Placet or Non placet, but by the choice of the first or second formula. The first formula, A, obtained 107 votes; the second, B, obtained 87. There were 2 abstentions and also 2 null votes”42. What is relevant to the discussion on reform and renewal from the perspective of the Church of Africa is that the issue of the ordination of married men was raised again, during the 1974 synod on evangelization, as vital to the pastoral life of the Burkinabe Church. The question was further discussed during the SECAM conference that followed the synod. The need to locally (regionally) address the challenge of Eucharistic famine fed into the question of putting in place stronger juridical instruments for the operation of episcopal conferences. The discussion on the need for strong juridical instruments for the legitimate operation of the episcopal conferences within the Catholic Church helps to clarify the seriousness of African Church leaders on reform and renewal. When Archbishop Yago of Abidjan declared that “episcopal conferences … have to be given greater freedom, Africa will be all the more loyal to the Holy Father”, he was drawing attention to the fact that strong juridical instruments that empower episcopal conferences strengthen communion. Bishop Bakpessi of Sokodé, Togo, agreed: one must “take African norms into account; ecclesiastical legislation has to leave a lot to the initiative of the leaders of local churches”. The issue 40. Contained in the summary of ZOA, A Panoramic Approach (n. 23); UZUKWU, A Listening Church (n. 8), p. 145. 41. A. FLANNERY, Vatican Council II: More Postconciliar Documents, Northport, NY, Costello Publications Company; Dublin, Dominican Publications, 1982, pp. 689-690. 42. Ibid., p. 694, n. 3. I am grateful to my colleague James Chukwuma Okoye for drawing my attention to the discussion on Ultimis temporibus, and the manner of voting.

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of the competence of episcopal conferences was not timidly raised. Archbishop Jean Zoa summarized in his report to the 1975 SECAM conference the points made by the Bishops: SECAM requests that “respective episcopal conferences be allowed to decide what initiatives to take as to the spiritual good of those under their charge … and not be brought down to a rigid application of Canon Law”. SECAM stressed “that the answers of the Holy See to pastoral questions brought up by the bishops’ conference be given only after a close examination and a genuine discussion with those on the spot, those who are bishops responsible to God and the native Church”43. This is as blunt as one can be in the post-Vatican II and post-independence Church of the 1970s. Bishop Sangu of Mbeya diocese, Tanzania, revealed in the frank talk of the arbre à palabre in an effort to clarify that Catholicity should no longer be captive of the “unitary state” structure of colonialism or the postcolonial dictatorships: But the changing conditions, and especially the coming-of-age of the African Church require a re-thinking of the relations between the African Churches and the Holy See; between the African Churches and the Congregations for the Evangelisation of Peoples; between the Episcopal Conferences and the Roman Curia, so that Episcopal Conferences could handle local matters which do not prejudice the universal church; relations too between episcopal conferences and papal legates should be clearly redefined44.

One searches in vain for similar frank talk during the 1994 and 2009 synods. The absence of the term “local church” in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the limitation in language of the term “particular” churches in the same code (or ecclesia peculiaris referring to different rites) and the increasing power of Roman congregations (e.g. Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments) limit creativity and collegiality. In A Listening Church, I summed up the frustration that results from the lack of collegial action: Rome is not finding it very easy to fulfil the role of the listening elder brother; she appears to have a long way to go in developing the large ears necessary for the creation of a harmonious and dynamic family. Or else there is no convincing explanation for the repetition during the African synod of 1994, of items over which the bishops felt very strongly twenty years earlier. In some ways the voice of the bishops lacked vigor in 1994 compared to the strength of 1974 and 197545. 43. ZOA, A Panoramic Approach (n. 23), esp. pp. 79-81, 87-88. 44. SANGU, SECAM and Evangelisation in Africa (n. 34), p. 103. 45. UZUKWU, A Listening Church (n. 8), p. 146.

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René Luneau not only agrees but suggests strongly that the dream of 1977 – of a Council of the Catholic Church in Africa – be rekindled to address the monumental problems facing Africa and the Church. He indicates clearly that this was the feeling of some African bishops’ conferences and of tertiary institutions of Africa in their response to the Lineamenta of the 1994 synod: that the 1994 synod be only a stage in the preparation for a Council of the Churches of Africa; and that one should take time to prepare for the African Council that is being inaugurated by the 1994 synod46. IV. EVANGELII GAUDIUM OF POPE FRANCIS: INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT FOR RENEWAL AND REFORM OF THE CHURCH On November 24, 2013, within the first year of his pontificate, Pope Francis published the post-synodal exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. The exhortation, inspired by the 2012 Synod on New Evangelization, underlines that the ministry of the bishops, inserted within the missionary dynamism of the Church, is kenotic “service”. This calls for profound conversion. In his captivating style Pope Francis humbly acknowledged that this practice of the ministry of service should begin with conversion within the primatial see of Peter. With extraordinary frankness and departing from the style of his predecessors (Benedict XVI and John Paul II), the Pope declared that he was “conscious of the need to promote a sound ‘decentralization’” (EG 16). In strong terms, reflective of the language of SECAM Bishops of the 1970s (above), he lamented: “[e]xcessive centralization, rather than proving helpful, complicates the Church’s life and her missionary outreach” (EG 32)47. The missionary Church in the contemporary world must boldly reinvigorate the collegial pattern that fully trusts regional or local churches, and, therefore, episcopal conferences. Evangelii Gaudium portrays, according to commentators, an important landmark in the reception of Vatican II, an important challenge to the Church of the Latin patriarchate. It stands out as a landmark document

46. The views expressed strongly by the episcopal conference of Chad, and summary of the views of Catholic universities of Africa by Jean-Marc Ela. LUNEAU, Paroles et silences (n. 5), pp. 225-226. 47. See Evangelii Gaudium 16 and 32, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html.

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for the discussion of reform and renewal in the Church of Africa48. It is a timely directive for the acceleration worldwide of the renewal or aggiornamento introduced by Vatican II. One could say that it indicates turning away from the calls for the “reform of the reform” to adopting true ongoing reception of the renewal introduced by Vatican II49. Today, says Peter Cardinal Kodwo Appiah Turkson (relator of the Synod of Bishops for Africa 2009), the majority of bishops, priests and religious women and men of African origin ministering in the churches of Africa are post-Vatican II created ministers50. It comes as no surprise that Pope Francis, ordained a priest in 1969, is concerned for the Church’s implementation of the “reform” of Vatican II. The tone of Evangelii Gaudium rhymes with the reform and renewal efforts in Africa of the 1970s where the “particular churches” (dioceses) and the “local” (regional) churches, practiced diversity and difference in the prophetic-collegial spirit of Vatican II (e.g. LG 22-23; CD 11; AG 22; GS 53) within the one united catholica. On the other hand, the 1994/2009 synods, though important in their impacts and contributions, display the pathologies of “excessive centralization”. Evangelii Gaudium, the magna carta of the pontificate of Pope Francis, in its urgent call to embrace collegiality and set aside the culture of excessive centralization, draws attention to the unfinished business of Vatican II. In this way Pope Francis introduces freshness in the reception of Vatican II and charts the path to abandon the image of the unitary state, dominant in the Church since the Constantinian era; an image that was eroding, according to Church historian John O’Malley, in the era of modernity, in particular in the “long 19th century … stretching, for the catholic Church, from the French revolution until the end of the pontificate of Pius XII in 1958”51. The “event” of Vatican II enabled 48. As indicative of the important milestone in the reception of Vatican II, see G. MANNION (ed.), Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism: Evangelii Gaudium and the Papal Agenda, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2017. 49. “Reform of the reform” is the call in USA and Europe by some frustrated that liturgical “reform happened too quickly and too radically”. If 1975 marked the peak of Vatican’s “proactive stance towards liturgical reform”, says John Baldovin, “the year 1994 marked a definitive turning point when the fourth Instruction on the Reform of the Liturgy, Varietates Legitimae, on the subject of inculturation, was promulgated”. J.F. BALDOVIN, Reforming the Liturgy: A Response to the Critics, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2008, pp. 3, 5-6. 50. See P.K.A. TURKSON, The Second Vatican Council and the Challenges of Justice and Peace in Africa, in E.E. UZUKWU (ed.), Mission for Diversity: Exploring Christian Mission in the Contemporary World, Zürich, LIT Verlag, 2015, 15-25, p. 16. 51. J.W. O’MALLEY – D.G. SCHULTENOVER, Vatican II: Did Anything Happen?, New York, Continuum, 2007, p. 11. See also M. FAGGIOLI, Catholicism and Citizenship:

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the Catholic Church to rediscover collegial collaboration and recognize the gathering of episcopal conferences as the genuine exercise of collegiate action. Evangelii Gaudium intends to give “juridical status” to the “episcopal conferences”: The Second Vatican Council stated that, like the ancient patriarchal Churches, episcopal conferences are in a position “to contribute in many and fruitful ways to the concrete realization of the collegial spirit”. Yet this desire has not been fully realized, since a juridical status of episcopal conferences which would see them as subjects of specific attributions, including genuine doctrinal authority, has not yet been sufficiently elaborated. Excessive centralization, rather than proving helpful, complicates the Church’s life and her missionary outreach (EG 32)52.

However, insofar as this papal pronouncement is not supported by change in the prevailing canonical norms, it will have no longstanding effect. While addressing the question of the competence of episcopal conferences, Evangelii Gaudium refers to Apostolos Suos (May 21, 1998) but does not actually set it aside; it does not introduce legislation to give new “juridical status” to episcopal conferences. Apostolos Suos 20, for example, ensures that episcopal conferences are circumscribed in operation. SECAM bishops of the 1970s will find the ruling on episcopal conferences by Apostolos Suos in 1998 very frustrating and different from their understanding of the historical exercise of collegiate action. Apostolos Suos 20 states: In the episcopal conference the bishops jointly exercise the episcopal ministry for the good of the faithful of the territory of the conference; but for that exercise to be legitimate and binding on the individual bishops there is needed the intervention of the supreme authority of the church which, through universal law or particular mandates, entrusts determined questions to the deliberation of the episcopal conference.

In other words, the episcopal conferences are denied true and juridical collegiate action. They function at the pleasure of the “supreme authority of the Church” (the Pope). Their role appears not to be dissimilar to the dicasteries that function at the pleasure of the pope. As noted above, Bishop Sangu, speaking about “SECAM and Evangelisation in Africa” (1975) called for a “re-thinking of the relations between

Political Cultures of the Church in the Twenty-First Century, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2017, pp. 46ff. 52. Pope FRANCIS, Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, http://www.vatican.va/ evangelii-gaudium/en/ (accessed 29 September 2015).

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the African Churches and the Holy See, … between the episcopal conferences and the Roman curia, so that episcopal conferences could handle local matters which do not prejudice the universal church”53. American ecclesiologist Francis Sullivan believes that in the frosty debate on “episcopal conferences” that led to Apostolos Suos, it is the theologicojuridical position of Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) that prevailed. In preparing “The Challenge of Peace” (in 1983), a pastoral letter of the American bishops’ conference, Sullivan recalls that a meeting in Rome between the American bishops’ conference and their European counterpart was proposed to reconcile their positions. One of the topics proposed by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Joseph Ratzinger, was the doctrinal teaching authority of episcopal conferences: “A bishops’ conference as such does not have a mandatum docendi. This belongs only to the individual bishops or to the college of bishops with the pope”54. This is the position adopted by Apostolos Suos. Were African Bishops, in the 1970s, then completely wrong in believing they had competence to speak with one voice and to demand juridical powers as Episcopal conferences? Or, are they simply a “federation of national churches” with “no teaching mission”: their “documents have no weight of their own save that of the consent given to them by the individual bishops”? In other words, as individual bishops they share in the teaching authority “based on an episcopal structure”, but as bishops of churches located within geographical, regional-cultural and human spaces or lands, confessing their faith in the Lord, they collectively lose or are denied teaching authority55? Bernard Sesboüé argued from history, and from a crucial meeting of theologians (at Salamanca) to discuss the competence of episcopal conferences, that the simultaneity of the consent given to a doctrinal-normative text by individual bishops is a legitimate experience of collegiate action. But also, still based on the sacramentality of the episcopacy, the conference of a particular territory is a genuine “subject” of collegiate action56. Any wonder that Yves Congar characterized the excessive centralization that denies or limits the competence of regional conference of bishops as “stealing” from the bishops (local/regional churches) what belongs

53. Recorded in Acts (n. 23), p. 103. 54. F.A. SULLIVAN, The Teaching Authority of Episcopal Conferences, in Theological Studies 63 (2002) 472-493, p. 487. 55. See The Ratzinger Report (n. 21), pp. 58-61. 56. B. SESBOÜÉ, Le magistère à l’épreuve: Autorité, vérité et liberté dans l’Église, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 2001, pp. 232-233.

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to them as particular churches57. When this situation prevails in the post-Vatican II Church, it foists on the Church the ecclesiological assumptions of the High Middle Ages58. Instead of strengthening communion, centralization weakens communion. The result is that “The urban community of Rome integrated into the small space of its urbs (city) the whole Latin world (orbis)” (von Allmen). Adopting the Constantinian worldview59 of Apostolos Suos and the ecclesiology of the High Middle Ages undermines the reception of the collegial pattern of the Vatican II renewal and reform. It denies the local/regional churches led by competent ecclesiastical authorities the independence of their geographical space. It forces the local/regional church to migrate to Rome, and thereby jeopardizes the legitimate and true confession of the Lord in multiple lands (cf. Augustine). It reinforces a situation whereby “the West”, and its orbit of colonial expansions integrated within Roman Catholicism, becomes “one local community”. This uniformization of the Catholic Church results in the loss of its fundamental character: “unity in plurality”60. V. MAGNUM PRINCIPIUM – THE STEP TOWARD A NEW JURIDICAL STATUS OF EPISCOPAL CONFERENCES Translating “most accurately” the typical edition (editio typica) of the Roman liturgical texts or, on the other hand, translating to accommodate the “meaning” of the text in a receptor language, “dynamic equivalence”, curiously brings to the fore the doctrinal question of the competency of bishops, episcopal conferences, the status of “the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority” (SC 22.2; 36.3), in their relationship to the Holy See. Every pastoral-liturgical action has underlying theological grounding61. The great achievement of Vatican II, and the symbol 57. Gerald O’Collins humorously referenced Congar’s frustration on learning that certain powers were being given back to the bishops: “Over the centuries these powers were stolen from the bishops. They are being given back what was stolen from them”. G. O’COLLINS, Lost in Translation: The English Language and the Catholic Mass, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2017, p. 114. 58. Y. CONGAR, L’écclésiologie du Haut Moyen Âge: De Saint Grégoire le Grand à la désunion entre Byzance et Rome, Paris, Cerf, 1968. 59. Y. CONGAR, Le monothéisme politique et le Dieu Trinité, in Nouvelle Revue Théologique 103 (1981) 3-17. 60. CONGAR, Le pape comme patriarche d’Occident (n. 11), pp. 380-381. I discussed this in UZUKWU, A Listening Church (n. 8), p. 57. 61. Sesboüé notes this strongly depending on, among others, the work of Yves Congar: SESBOÜÉ, Le magistère à l’épreuve (n. 56), p. 232. See Y. CONGAR, Collège, primauté…, conférences épiscopales: Quelques notes, in Esprit et Vie 96 (1986) 385-390, pp. 388-389.

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of its worldwide reception, is the reform of the liturgy, from the “Babylonian captivity” of the monolingual Church to the Pentecost of the plurilingual, to realize full and conscious participation by the People of God. Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy. … In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else…” (SC 14).

“If now we wish to simplify our liturgical rites”, said Paul VI, “if we wish to render them more intelligible to the people and accommodated to the language they speak, by so doing we certainly do not wish to lessen the importance of prayer, or to subordinate it to other concerns of the sacred ministry or pastoral activity, or to impoverish its expressive force and artistic appeal. We wish to render the liturgy more pure, more genuine, more in agreement with the source of truth and grace, more suitable to be transformed into a spiritual patrimony of the people”62. The struggle to determine the most apt (idoneity) mode to interpret the directives of Vatican II on the vernacularization of the liturgy, on adaptation (aptatio) or inculturation (profundior aptatio) (SC 22.2; 36.3; 37-40; 65), is a struggle between the bishops, episcopal conferences, and the Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW, especially since 1994), that clearly testifies to the local reception of Vatican II63. Pope Francis purposefully inserted himself within the struggle through a personal decision (Magnum Principium): translation, for greater intelligibility, and accommodation “to the language” of Catholics located in particular lands, is determined as the primary role of the Holy See, the bishops and episcopal conferences. The organ of the Holy See, CDW, must not replace the competent territorial authorities nor impose its word-forword ideology on receptor languages. Magnum Principium modifies Canon 838 on the liturgical responsibility of the Holy See, bishops and episcopal conferences64. The decision to modify this canon confirms, in my view, that the Pope’s statement in Evangelii Gaudium 32 is at variance with Apostolos Suos 20 and the 62. PAUL VI, Address Tempus iam Advenit, cited by A. BUGNINI, The Reform of the Liturgy, 1948-1975, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 1990, p. 38. 63. The matter is very well studied by P. MARINI, A Challenging Reform: Realizing the Vision of the Liturgical Renewal, 1963-1975, Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2007 and BALDOVIN, Reforming the Liturgy (n. 49). 64. See Apostolic Letter in the Form of Motu Proprio “Magnum Principium” Quibus nonnulla in can. 838 Codicis Iuris Canonici immutantur, 9.9.2017; https://press.vatican. va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2017/09/09/170909a.html.

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position detailed in The Ratzinger Report. EG 32 expresses the need for “a juridical status of episcopal conferences which would see them as subjects of specific attributions, including genuine doctrinal authority”. Magnum Principium practically put paid to the centralizing worldview of CDW, its uniformist interpretation of SC 22, 36, 37-40, and the systematic appropriation and limitation of the competency of regional churches or episcopal conferences. Translation as Latinization (the monolingual directive to translate “the original texts faithfully and accurately into the vernacular language” Liturgiam Authenticam 20), is over. Magnum Principium modifies Canon 838 (highlighted below): §2. It is for the Apostolic See to order the sacred liturgy of the universal Church, publish liturgical books, recognise adaptations approved by the Episcopal Conference according to the norm of law, and exercise vigilance that liturgical regulations are observed faithfully everywhere. §3. It pertains to the Episcopal Conferences to faithfully prepare versions of the liturgical books in vernacular languages, suitably accommodated within defined limits, and to approve and publish the liturgical books for the regions for which they are responsible after the confirmation of the Apostolic See.

Confirmation does not mean supervision or granting permission to competent ecclesiastical authorities or replacing these authorities in their work of translation. Magnum Principium checks the overreach of the CDW in taking over the oversight powers of conferences (“these powers were stolen from the bishops” says Congar)65. The overreach was glaring in the aggressive intrusion into the management of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) constituted since 1968 by 11 English-speaking bishops’ conferences. In its narrow viewpoint of translation as Latinization (outlined in 2001 in Liturgiam Authenticam) CDW was hostile to the people-oriented liturgical principle of “dynamic equivalence” adopted by Comme le prévoit of 1969. Comme le prévoit advocated fidelity to the meaning of the Latin text not in the form of a word-for-word translation. It also envisaged the creation of “new texts” (§ 43): “Texts translated from another language are clearly not sufficient for the celebration of a fully renewed liturgy. The creation of new texts will be necessary”66. In introducing the scope of Magnum Principium, Pope Francis referred to “more radical adaptation” and the need to create

65. Quoted by O’COLLINS, Lost in Translation (n. 57), p. 114. 66. http://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Missal/Information/Comme-le-Prevoit.pdf (accessed 16 March 2017).

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“new texts” that was already referred to in Comme le prévoit. Pope Francis declared: To make collaboration in this service to the faithful between the Apostolic See and Episcopal Conferences easier and more fruitful, and having listened to the advice of the Commission of Bishops and Experts that I established, I order, with the authority entrusted to me, that the canonical discipline currently in force in can. 838 of the C.I.C. be made clearer so that, according to what is stated in the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, in particular in articles 36 §§3.4, 40 and 63, and in the Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio Sacram Liturgiam, n. IX, the competency of the Apostolic See surrounding the translation of liturgical books and the more radical adaptations established and approved by Episcopal Conferences be made clearer, among which can also be numbered eventual new texts to be inserted into these books67.

ICEL, like other translation committees, worked with the principle of dynamic equivalence. However, CDW rebuked the bishops claiming that ICEL was exercising “undue autonomy”. Consequently, the Prefect of CDW, Cardinal Medina, “demanded widespread changes in the mandate, structures, and personnel of ICEL, which led in 2003 to new statutes governing its operation”. Liturgists working for ICEL must be cleared (i.e. given the nihil obstat or appointed) by the CDW. Such power play radically defeats collegiality in its letter and spirit68. In Magnum Principium 4, Pope Francis was firm about the new limited role of CDW: Likewise I order that the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments modify its own “Regulations” on the basis of the new discipline and help the Episcopal Conferences to fulfil their task as well as working to promote ever more the liturgical life of the Latin Church.

But the current Prefect of CDW, Cardinal Robert Sarah, claimed that Magnum Principium has changed nothing in the oversight role and style of CDW. The Pope was quick to correct the Cardinal Prefect. In a letter sent out by the Vatican press office, Oct. 22, 2017, the correct interpretation of the motu proprio was clarified: Magnum Principium “grants the episcopal conferences the faculty to judge the worth and coherence of one or another phrase in the translations from the original”. Therefore, rather than the CDW undertaking a “detailed word-by-word exam” of

67. https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2017/09/09/ 170909a.html (accessed 18 February 2018). 68. See O’COLLINS, Lost in Translation (n. 57), pp. ix, 12, and especially chapters one and two.

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translations they receive from the world’s local bishops’ conferences, freedom and respect of the conferences should be the rule. The process of translating relevant liturgical texts into a language … must not bring a spirit of ‘imposition’ over the episcopal conferences with a translation handed down from the Dicastery, as that would betray the right of bishops as set forth in canon law69.

If this is not the clear affirmation of the pastoral-doctrinal competence of the episcopal conference, I do not see how one could express it in more explicit and normative terms. VI. CONCLUSION Magnum Principium is a classic illustration of the emergent “largeeared” “listening-Church”. From the perspective of reform and renewal, it is the endorsement of the “palaver tree” template. Pope Francis in this motu proprio follows closely the broad understanding of recognitio (Sacram Liturgiam 9). On the use of the “vernacular instead of Latin”, Sacram Liturgiam of Paul VI stated, “we deem it proper to specify that the various versions proposed by the competent territorial bishop’s conference must always be reviewed and approved by the Holy See. We order that this practice always be observed whenever a liturgical Latin text is translated into the vernacular on behalf of the territorial authority”70. The CDW, as from 1994, and especially since 2001 (Liturgiam Authenticam, translation as Latinization), transformed “confirmation” into the confiscation of the authority of the competent “territorial” ecclesiastical authorities71. It is inaccurate to understand confirmation as “an exercise of governance by the Holy See”72. Pope Francis, in the footsteps of Paul VI, stressed that Magnum Principium, like Sacram Liturgiam, must not be construed as “bring[ing] a spirit of ‘imposition’” on the Episcopal Conferences. To proceed in that direction “would betray the right of bishops as set forth in canon law”.

69. Reported by National Catholic Reporter, October 22 2017; https://www.ncronline. org/news/vatican/francis-corrects-sarah-liturgical-translations-not-be-imposed-vatican. 70. PAUL VI, Sacram Liturgiam: https://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/motu_proprio/ documents/hf_p-vi_motu-proprio_19640125_sacram-liturgiam.html (accessed 19 February 2018). 71. Note that Sacram Liturgiam interpreted “territorial” as “national”. 72. See the discussion of this O’COLLINS, Lost in Translation (n. 57), p. ix.

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Is one justified to conclude that this reception of Vatican II under Pope Francis is moving the world Church and the Church of Africa in the direction of the North African Church of Cyprian and Augustine? It would be rather optimistic to draw such a conclusion. However, one notes a move away from the Constantinian worldview. It is worth repeating that from the perspective of renewal and reform of the Church in Africa, the Pope is adopting the arbre à palabre, the “listening Church” template. Seated around the palaver tree, the primatial ministry of the See of Peter and SECAM (of the 1970s) are in accord: that the “respective episcopal conferences be allowed to decide what initiatives to take as to the spiritual good of those under their charge”. The authoritative teachings of episcopal conferences, as they confess the one faith in diverse geographical and human locations, are rooted in the episcopal mandatum docendi. The body of the faithful believe that their bishops are “guided by the Spirit and hence worthy of their trust and acceptance”. This explains why they trust and accept the “statements on which their bishops have reached consensus after broad consultation and serious deliberation”73. The Catholic Church of Africa, in the 1970s, demanded that juridical status be accorded to SECAM, though a symposium of the territorial conferences of Africa and Madagascar. Today, Pope Francis is challenging the post-Vatican II Church to trust in the freedom or boldness (parrhesia) of the children of God and enable the territorial conferences to take the initiatives as responsible servants for the good of the whole Church. In Africa, and elsewhere in contemporary Catholicism, the bishops, episcopal conferences and the competent territorial ecclesiastical authorities should follow the leadership of Pope Francis to assume their responsibility with courage. In this way, the Church leadership and the body of the faithful embrace the reform and renewal inaugurated by Vatican II. Duquesne University Theology Department 600 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15282 USA [email protected]

73. SULLIVAN, Teaching Authority (n. 54), p. 493.

Elochukwu UZUKWU

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND REFORM IN LIBERATION THEOLOGY

In this article I aim to present, from the context of Latin American liberation theology, a pneumatologically inspired vision of what the Church is called to be. For many centuries the role of the Spirit was underplayed in the Western Church1, and there is little appeal to pneumatology in relation to reform2. But over the past century, with the growth of Pentecostalism and the deliberate reference to the Spirit in and behind the Second Vatican Council, the situation has changed3. What role, then, can be attributed to the Holy Spirit in the ongoing journey of the Church towards the fullness of life in God? And what does liberation theology have to offer? I return to the “semper” of “ecclesia semper reformanda” later, but for now a few introductory remarks are called for on the Church and reform. For liberation theology, the Church – Ecclesia – is “of the poor”. This has been a fundamental claim of the theology of liberation since its beginnings4. This theology has always been strongly ecclesiological and has looked to the liberation of the poor, who are the vast majority of the Church of Latin America. The Church of the poor has always used * This study is part of a research project entitled “Latin American Liberation Theology: Prospects and Challenges” (GAČR 18-01543S), funded by the Czech Science Foundation. 1. The Orthodox Church had an arguably better grounded pneumatology, but the Holy Spirit served as the guarantor of faithfulness to the tradition, so there was no enunciated need for reform. 2. An example of this can be seen through a comparison of the pneumatology of the Catechism of the Council of Trent and the most recent Catechism of the Catholic Church. The former contains very few, and mainly formulaic references to the Holy Spirit. 3. This is seen with authors such as H. MÜHLEN, Der Heilige Geist als Person: In der Trinität, bei der Inkarnation und in Gnadenbund: Ich-Du-Wir, Münster, Aschendorff, 1969; H.U. VON BALTHASAR, Spiritus Creator: Skizzen zur Theologie III, Einsiedeln, Johannes Verlag, 1967; Y. CONGAR, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, New York, Seabury Press; London, Geoffrey Chapman, 1983. Among important works by Protestant writers, apart from Karl Barth, reference can be made also to J. MOLTMANN, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 1993. 4. The need for this is already mentioned in G. GUTIÉRREZ, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, London, SCM, 1988, p. 70 and elsewhere. See also the fairly early work by J. SOBRINO, The True Church and the Poor, London, SCM, 1984. For a more detailed reading of the concept in the light of Pope Francis, see C. SEDMAK, A Church of the Poor: Pope Francis and the Transformation of Orthodoxy, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 2016. I have also examined this question in T. NOBLE, The Poor in Liberation Theology: Pathway to God or Ideological Construct?, Abingdon, Routledge, 2014, pp. 28-31.

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the expression “of the poor” in both objective and subjective senses. The Church is of the poor – it is their Church. But the Church is also, of course, an institution, and as such it exists to be at the service of the poor and to work for their liberation. And this Church is a Church to be reformed – reformanda. Therefore it must constantly be converted to act for the liberation of the oppressed, the proclamation of life in situations of death, the practice of justice for those to whom injustice is done5. This is the claim and the aim of liberation theology, but is there anything behind what can at times be simply rhetoric? In response, I turn now to the proceedings of the Second Continental Congress of Theology, held in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, at the end of October 2015, and organized by Amerindia. Amerindia is an association of mainly Catholic theologians which seeks to foster the practice of liberation theology in Latin America and the Caribbean6. The preceding conference, held in 2012, produced two volumes of proceedings, containing some 1300 pages and 91 contributions7. Only five of these, covering less than 100 pages, are directly on the Church. It may be too much to say that the theologians of liberation at that time had given up on the institutional Catholic Church, but it was clearly experienced as problematic. The very theme of the second congress already indicates the changes that have occurred – “The Church that Walks with the Spirit and from the Perspective of the Poor”. Least surprising is the reference to the poor, which, despite problems, remains at the heart of liberation theology. However, the reintroduction of ecclesiology and the focus for the first time in such a gathering on pneumatology are worthy of note. The first is certainly explained in part by the election of Pope Francis, a man who speaks the same language as Latin American theologians of liberation (literally obviously, but also metaphorically)8. The second has, I suspect, a number of causes. It builds on the growing interest in pneumatology in

5. See for example, J.M. VIGIL, A opção pelos pobres é opção pela justiça, e não é preferencial: Para um reenquadramento teológico-sistemático da opção pelos pobres, in Perspectiva Teológica 36 (2004) 241-252. 6. For more, see their website, http://www.amerindiaenlared.org/sobreamerindia/. A third conference was held in San Salvador, El Salvador, in August 2018, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Latin American Bishops’ meeting in Medellín, so influential for the development of liberation theology. 7. La teología de la liberación en prospectiva, Montevideo, Fundación Amerindia, 2012, two volumes. 8. See Ó.E. PRADA – D.M. MORENO GARCÍA, La fuerza transformadora de lo pequeño y de los pequeños, in Ó.E. PRADA – R. HERMANO – D.M. GARCÍA (eds.), Iglesia que camina con Espíritu y desde los pobres, Montevideo, Fundación Amerindia, 2016, 453-464, p. 455.

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liberation theology9, which itself almost certainly serves as a response to the “neo-pentecostalisation” of large parts of Latin America, and the influences this has had on the Catholic Church10. Although not necessarily primarily a theological issue, this has encouraged deeper reflection on the role of the Spirit. I. THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE POOR In what follows I will draw on three texts from the conference proceedings. I begin with a presentation by Victor Codina, a Catalan Jesuit who has lived for the past thirty-five years in Bolivia, and who has long been a leading contributor to the theology of liberation. His text on the central themes of a Latin American / Caribbean pneumatology11 starts by looking at the spiritual experiences that emerged in the region from the late 1960s onwards. There are, he suggests, six areas in which this experience can be discerned, nearly all of which are, broadly speaking, ecclesial. They are the presence of some outstanding bishops, the emergence of the Base Ecclesial Communities, a highly engaged laity, changes in the living out of religious life, the witness of the martyrs, and the spread of Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, both within and outside the Catholic Church12. Codina notes these realities as part of the “See” phase of the traditional liberation method of See-Judge-Act. They are the observable phenomena which call for a pneumatological reading. Why was there such a manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the Latin American Church in the decades following the Second Vatican Council and the Second General Conference of the Council of Latin American Bishops in Medellín in 1968? 9. The first liberation theologian to deal with the theme in detail was J. COMBLIN: see O Espírito Santo e a Libertação, Petrópolis, Vozes, 1988, and his last work, published posthumously, O Espírito Santo e a Tradição de Jesus, São Bernardo do Campo, Nhanduti, 2012. See also V. CODINA, “Não extingais o Espírito” (1Ts 5,19): Iniciação à pneumatologia, São Paulo, Paulinas, 2010, and L. BOFF, O Espírito Santo: Fogo interior, doador de vida e Pai dos pobres, Petrópolis, Vozes, 2013. 10. At least in the case of Leonardo Boff I think it is also related to his interest in ecotheology, and as a response to a dispute he had with his brother Clodovis some ten years ago, in which mutual accusations of Christomonism were flying around. The progression in Leonardo Boff from his early christological interests, through his emphasis on the social Trinity, to his more recent interest in pneumatology would repay further research. 11. V. CODINA, Líneas centrales de una pneumatología de América Latina y el Caribe, in PRADA et al., Iglesia que camina (n. 8), 215-241. 12. Ibid., pp. 221-229.

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To answer this question, Codina turns to an analysis of what he sees as the major insight of a Latin American pneumatology. This is the claim that all the manifestations of the Spirit in the period are manifestations of the operation of the Spirit acting from below13. Although this is central to liberation christologies14, it is much less common in pneumatology, partly because two of the major New Testament images of the Spirit, the dove at the baptism of Jesus and the tongues of flame at Pentecost, are rather obviously descending images – the Spirit descends or is called down on us, or will be sent to us from the Father. But, says Codina, …in these years the Holy Spirit … acted in Latin America from below, from the cry of the poor, from the underside of history, from the abyss and from the de profundis of history, from the excluded and disregarded, from those who “neither know nor are able to do anything”, from the “nobodies”, from impotence, from the last (eschatoi), from the crucified of history…15.

With this classic list of who the “poor” are for liberation theology, Codina is arguing that the Spirit is present and is “incarnated” or we might say “inspirited” precisely in the lives of all who are “dispirited”, who through injustice are denied access to the life-giving power of the Spirit in their lives16. The presence of this Spirit from below is, according to Codina, already visible in the Bible, as one who forms life out of chaos and gives life, in the prophetic outpourings in favour of the liberation of all who are captive, and in the Spirit who speaks through the poor and through each of us in our poverty to the Father. Throughout history, says Codina, the Spirit “acts from the marginalised, from below, from the periphery”17. But Codina has to admit that there is little or nothing in the tradition of the Church that can support the idea of a pneumatology from below. The Spirit is rarely historicized in the official theologies and teachings of the Christian Churches, not even in the East. Nevertheless, as he notes, theology is not simply what Church representatives or councils teach, 13. Ibid., p. 229. 14. See on this, for example, P. JANDEJSEK, Christologie zdola? Spor o Jacquese Dupuise, Rogera Haighta a Jona Sobrina [Christology from Below? Conflicts over Jacques Dupuis, Roger Haight and Jon Sobrino], Doctoral Diss. Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles University, Prague, 2016. 15. CODINA, Líneas centrales (n. 11), p. 229. 16. On the role of the poor in Codina’s pneumatology, see also V.P. FERREIRA, A dignidade dos pobres na pneumatologia de Victor Codina, in Anais do Congresso da SOTER: 28º Congresso Internacional de SOTER. Tempos do espírito: inspiração e discernimento, Belo Horizonte, SOTER, 2016, 1031-1037. 17. CODINA, Líneas centrales (n. 11), p. 232.

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however important and necessary they are. It is also present in different forms in the movements for reform which emerge in the Church. In this context he mentions Joachim of Fiore and Thomas Müntzer, and in Latin America, the nineteenth-century movements of liberation that, he says, emerged from below, and finally the movements of reform in Catholic theology in the first half of the twentieth century that would bear fruit in the Second Vatican Council. All these are signs for him of the Spirit at work from below18. The Spirit working from below brings with it consequences. First of all, seeing the outpouring of the Spirit as from below is not the result of some new pneumatological theory, but rather a new phenomenon, or at least the rediscovery of a much older one. This is because the Spirit has in fact always been present in the Church, as a kind of prophetic call to return the Church to the path of the Kingdom. Of course, this is not to say that all protest is right (or wrong, for that matter), and Codina points to the need for constant discernment. What is of the Spirit brings life and hope, especially to the poor. Finally, from a theological perspective, Codina insists on the importance of encountering the Spirit in a Trinitarian way, thus avoiding both the traditional Christomonism of much of the Western Church and the pneumatomonism of some charismatic and spiritualist movements. The Spirit is both the gift of the Father through Christ and the source of the life of the Son made incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth – there is no Christian theology that is not fundamentally Trinitarian19. This has pastoral consequences. First, the life of the Church begins with mystagogy, since it is the experience of Christ in the poor through the Spirit that enables proclamation and the encounter with the poor. This will lead to a more narrative form of theology in which the story of Jesus of Nazareth anointed by the Spirit can be told always anew. Moreover a pneumatology from below will encourage openness to difference and diversity, of gender, sexuality, age, culture, religions, and in doing so will encourage dialogue between different groups. “The Spirit”, says Codina, “is the Spirit of Pentecost, contrary to Babel, it is the Spirit of the plurality of languages and the multiform diversity of charisms, a Spirit who is always new, who arrives before the missionaries”20. A pneumatology from below also has ecological implications, because it insists on the liberation of the captive earth so that all may be transformed in Christ. 18. Ibid., pp. 232-234. 19. Ibid., pp. 234-238. 20. Ibid., p. 239.

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The idea of a pneumatology from below also has significant ecclesiological implications, for which Codina uses many of the images that Pope Francis has employed. The Church should be …poor and of the poor, in solidarity, synodal, decentralized, [it should] heal the wounded, go out to the frontiers, gather the flock, care for creation, not fear tenderness, [it should] live the joy of the Gospel, [it should] respect all that is positive in cultures and religions, …, [it should] not fear the newness of the Spirit21.

This vision of what the Church could be is, at least for Codina, based on what the Church already is, but it is not a return to an assumed golden age (the New Testament Church, the early Church, the medieval Church, the Church of Trent, the Church of Vatican I), but a Church that is visible, in part, in Latin America. Codina’s position is, needless to say, not beyond criticism. A kenotic view of the Spirit22 has much to recommend it, but the danger is always that the kenosis is filled with whatever we want to emphasise as important. And as with a Christology from below, if stressed too much, it becomes too immanent, and reduces the possibility of the transcendent. The image must always be in some sense circular, like the wind with cyclones and anti-cyclones, which is not to say that what goes round comes round, but to say that the movement is from God to creation and back from creation to God and that this movement of the Spirit and of the Son is never only one way. There is also a danger of equating particular movements with the presence of the Spirit. One does not need to engage in any defence of colonialism to wonder if all liberation movements are really manifestations of the Spirit operating from below – they may be, but they also frequently may not be, unless one of the charisms of the Spirit is the founding of nation states. And there is always a thin line between the insight that God is particularly present for and with those who have injustice done to them and an over-idealisation of such people, summarised as “the poor”23. I think that Codina is aware of this, but more nuancing might help. Nevertheless, keeping all this in mind, Codina does offer a very rich pneumatological reading that can help us in reflecting on the nature of 21. Ibid. 22. On the kenosis of the Spirit see CONGAR, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (n. 3), vol. 1, pp. vii-viii, and in more detail, I. NOBLE, Theological Interpretation of Culture in PostCommunist Context: Central and East European Search for Roots, Farnham, Ashgate, 2010, pp. 176-180. 23. I have examined this in detail in NOBLE, The Poor in Liberation Theology (n. 4).

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reform in the Church. First, he reminds us that the Church, whilst a polyvalent concept, is primarily the Church of the poor, the Church of those who know that God is the source of all, and who experience the presence of God amidst the oppression and injustice created by individuals and systems that stand against God. And the Spirit animates this Church, breathes through and in it, as the “life-giver” or “life-maker” (zōopoión). Thus, whilst Christ is the Head of the Church, the Spirit is in some sense its lungs, and it is only when the Church is “inspirited”, when the Church is suffused with this life-giving power of the Spirit at work in and through and with the poor, that the Church can truly be said to exist. Codina’s argument implies that the Church in which the Spirit acts is always also necessarily precarious. If the Church is always reforming / to be reformed (semper reformanda), then the Church becomes a dynamic presence, an ever-evolving, ever-changing body, like Heraclitus’ river. A Spirit-filled Church will be blown where the Spirit wills, and thus inherently unstable. This is its strength, because it can adapt, it can be present in every nook and cranny, it can be a sign of the gospel, of the Good News that Jesus came to proclaim to the poor. A Church that truly walks with the Spirit and with the poor may not always know where it is going, but with the Spirit behind it and Christ ahead it can go forward with the hope of arriving at the fullness of God’s kingdom. II. CHURCH REFORM AND THE PRESENCE OF THE SPIRIT IN THE HEARTS OF THE POOR The second article that I consider takes further the idea of Church reform. Written by Carlos Schickendantz, an Argentinean theologian currently based in Chile, it examines the idea of Church reform from the perspective of the Spirit at work in the hearts of all peoples24. His aim is to carry on a debate on Church reform that he had already begun at the previous congress25, examining the positive and negative or challenging aspects of the history of reception of the Second Vatican Council, finishing with some propositions about the future26. 24. C. SCHICKENDANTZ, Hacia una reforma eclesial a partir de la acción del Espíritu en el corazón de todos los pueblos, in PRADA et al. (eds.), Iglesia que camina (n. 8), 281-316. 25. See C. SCHICKENDANTZ, Creciente desconfianza en las estructuras históricas de la Iglesia: Hacia una reforma institucional en el actual contexto cultural, in La teología de la liberación en prospectiva. Vol. 1: Trabajos científicos, Montevideo, Amerindia, 2012, 249-272. 26. See SCHICKENDANTZ, Hacia una reforma (n. 24), pp. 283-284.

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He lists six positive aspects, which he characterises in terms of “farewells” – what “captivities”27 has the Church (and here he refers most specifically to the Roman Catholic Church) managed to escape in the course of the past fifty years? The first of these is the disentanglement of Church and state28. For Schickendantz, the very title of the decree on religious freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, is telling in this respect, since the Church now recognises the right to freedom of religion as inherent in the human person rather than as something to be bestowed or not by the state in league with the Church29. And of course it is not simply the freedom of religion, but other freedoms too. This recognition of the rights which people hold as people was of special importance in the development of liberation theology, in countries in which there were traditionally strong links between Church and state. Although Schickendantz himself does not note it, we might say that this is one of the ways the Spirit works in the Church through transforming its vision of its relation to power. The fact that the changes which occurred require constant attention is not to deny what Gustavo Gutiérrez called the power of the poor in history30, but to underline that reform is indeed an ongoing vocation (semper reformanda). The second and third “farewells” that Schickendantz refers to are respectively from the division between East and West occasioned by the Great Schism of 1054, and the split in the Western Church itself as a result of the Reformation. His main interest in terms of the first event is in the overcoming of the problems that arose in the Roman Catholic Church as a result of this schism, which he sees as having led to a form of monoculturalism and uniformity, and over-emphasis on the role of the papacy31. With regards to the Reformation, he particularly welcomes

27. I use the phrase echoing Fr. Georges Florovsky, who was one of the first Orthodox theologians in the twentieth century to speak about the need for Orthodox theology to escape from what some have termed the Western captivity – the dependence on Western (neo-scholastic or Protestant) modes of theologising that had taken root in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Russia and elsewhere. See more on this in I. NOBLE et al., Wrestling with the Mind of the Fathers, Yonkers, NY, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2015, pp. 27-38. 28. See SCHICKENDANTZ, Hacia una reforma (n. 24), pp. 285-287. Given that he dates this back to Constantine, one might be tempted to say that this is the escape from the Byzantine captivity, even though of course historically the relationship between Church and State in Byzantium, as in Medieval Europe, was always more complex and more fractious than is sometimes acknowledged in simple models of Christendom. 29. Ibid., p. 286. 30. G. GUTIÉRREZ, The Power of the Poor in History: Selected Writings, London, SCM, 1983. 31. See SCHICKENDANTZ, Hacia una reforma (n. 24), p. 287.

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the re-discovery of an emphasis on the Bible. The main point here is the re-introduction of diversity into the Church. Although arguably the diversity disappeared more as a result of the reforms that came after the Council of Trent, the point seems a reasonable one – the rediscovery of the riches of different traditions prevents the same kind of abuse of power that was present with the too close relationship with the state, where the other is perceived more as threat than as gift. The overcoming of the post-Tridentine form of Catholicism that shaped the Church in the areas where liberation theology grew (Latin America and subsequently and in different forms in Africa and Asia) is also linked to the fifth area that Schickendantz mentions, the farewell to an institutional and hierarchical Church. He speaks of 400 years of such a Church, though in practice in Latin America the process of heavy Romanization began much later, and was linked to Vatican I and the insistence on the central role of the papacy in the Church32. Although it is not Schickendantz’s point, this is in many ways linked to his first comment on the relation between Church and state. As the Church came to have less overt political power, it sought to maintain its authority and ability to control events through other means, such as the nomination of bishops, the unification of systems of clerical education and the increased insistence on the Pope as supreme arbiter. These, of course, were also Church reforms, and at least serve to illustrate how the Church has constantly sought to reform itself to deal with what it perceived as the needs of the time. The fourth and sixth elements that Schickendantz welcomes are also, broadly speaking, linked. One is the willingness to openly engage with history – as just noted, this was happening but not with an explicit recognition of the fact – and to engage also with modernity, even arguably as it was coming to an end33. This could be seen as a recognition of the activity of the Spirit in the world, so that human activity is not seen as a fundamentally godless realm, which can be touched by God, but is recognised as already part of the divine-human encounter. Or, to put it in the terms of mid-twentieth-century Roman Catholic theological debates, it is the recognition of the inextricable relationship of grace and nature. And finally, Schickendantz points to the foundational aspect for Latin 32. For a brief consideration of this, see E. DUSSEL, Historia de la Iglesia en America Latina: Coloniaje y Liberación, Madrid, Mundo Negro, 1983, pp. 154-177. See also on the situation in Brazil, M. DE AQUINO, O conceito de romanização do catolicismo brasileiro e a abordagem histórica da Teologia da Libertação, in Horizonte 11 (2013) 1485-1505. 33. See SCHICKENDANTZ, Hacia una reforma (n. 24), pp. 292-293.

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American theologies of liberation, which also involves a transformation in how the world is viewed, this time in terms of the way of thinking theologically34. He argues that theology is no longer done a-contextually and deductively, but relies on a robust engagement with context. One way of phrasing Schickendantz’s reading of how the Church has set about reforming itself is by appeal to (or strictly speaking misappropriation of35) the phrase “locus theologicus” / “loci theologici”. Where and in relation to whom does the Church exist, and where and in relation to whom does it think about and seek to articulate its faith (theology)? In changing its coordinates, its place on the map of human existence in relation to God, the Church necessarily has to re-form, but the underlying claim that Schickendantz makes is that only by re-locating and thus re-forming can the Church hope to retain a place on the map at all. Needless to say, such reformation and re-forming have not been universally acclaimed, and the second part of Schickendantz’s article concentrates on what he sees as regresses or failures to embrace reform, “negative developments” as he puts it36. He sums these up in two major trajectories, “an over-valuing of the Western tradition which understands processes of inculturation as processes of translation [and] a new desire for Roman centralization”37. He is hopeful, writing in 2015, that the papacy of Pope Francis will help in overcoming these problems38. He links the first point to the partial disappearance of the theme of the People of God as found in Lumen Gentium39. This he finds in various synodal documents of the 1980s, but is hopeful that in Evangelii Gaudium40 the theme is brought back more to the centre of the magisterium.

34. Ibid., pp. 297-299. 35. Melchior Cano’s use of the phrase in the sixteenth century was notably different, adducing ten sources on which theology could draw. Liberation and other contextual theologies have tended to focus more on the “locus”, on the setting in which theology is done, seeing that as a foundational source for theology, without of course necessarily denying some of Cano’s loci, such as Scripture and tradition. A critical reading of liberation theologians’ use of the term can be found in J.C. SCANNONE, Situación de la Problemática del Método Teológico en América Latina, in Medellín 78 (1994) 255-285. 36. See SCHICKENDANTZ, Hacia una reforma (n. 24), p. 299. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid., pp. 302-303. 39. The heading of Chapter II of Lumen Gentium, see especially paragraph 9. 40. See for example in paragraph 111 of Evangelii Gaudium: “The Church, as the agent of evangelization, is more than an organic and hierarchical institution; she is first and foremost a people advancing on its pilgrim way towards God”.

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Although in theory the communio model favoured in the synodal documents to which Schickendantz refers41 does not rule out the possibility of reform, it does not imply it so strongly as an emphasis on the People of God. To return to the cartographic image I employed above, the People of God are a people on the move, and thus constantly having to re-negotiate their place in the world. An emphasis on community can become more static, and stress the importance of maintaining the community over against all that is not the community (“the world”, other Christian Churches, other faiths, etc.). The second area that Schickendantz draws attention to is the response to what he terms the new methodology present in Gaudium et Spes, which he characterises as inductive, trying to see the world as it is before reaching theological conclusions about it, rather than the previous deductive method of applying existing theological categories and concepts to the world and forcing it to fit into them. Schickendantz sees a struggle between those – such as liberation theologians with their appeal to the See-Judge-Act pastoral cycle – who welcomed this new approach, and those who rejected it (he mentions as an example the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI)42. The thrust of the argument is that the view of who the Church is and how it should encounter the world have an impact on the possibility of reform in the Church. What is it that needs reforming and how is reform to be carried out? This is necessary to bear in mind. It is clearly not that there is only one right way of carrying out Church reform, and whatever judgements may be passed on the papacy of Benedict XVI, he was clearly intent on bringing reform to the Church. But the question still remains as to what kind of reform, and for whose benefit and with what end? This is where Schickendantz ends, with the need for constant discernment43. Where is the Spirit at work in the Church? He speaks in terms of a hermeneutical circle, which is another more technical way to describe the “semper” of ecclesia semper reformanda – the process is one that is necessarily on-going. 41. Especially the 1985 Second Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. The discussion on the notion of communio is found especially in Section II: C of the document. The text can be found, for example, at https://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/ synfinal.htm. 42. See SCHICKENDANTZ, Hacia una reforma (n. 24), pp. 307-312. For a nuanced consideration of Ratzinger’s views of liberation theology, which coincide with Schickendantz’s reading in several points, see J. CORKERY, Joseph Ratzinger on Liberation Theology: What Did He Say? Why Did He Say It? What Can Be Said about It?, in P. CLAFFEY – J. EGAN (eds.), Movement or Moment? Assessing Liberation Theology Forty Years after Medellin, Bern, Peter Lang, 2009, 183-202. 43. See SCHICKENDANTZ, Hacia una reforma (n. 24), pp. 315-316.

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III. REFORM

BY INCLUSION

But, of course, discernment needs criteria. Thus I turn to one final text, by another Argentinean-born theologian, Virginia Raquel Azcuy. Although I will only brief consider her chapter, it does offer one important criterion for discerning the question of who benefits from reform. Her contribution to the congress is entitled “Indications for a reform of the Church in an inclusive key: Longing for equality and ecclesiological contributions that seek to flourish”44. The title, whilst long, serves as a helpful summary of what she is trying to do in the article. By “inclusive”, she is fundamentally speaking about the inclusion of the voice of women, and her article is an investigation of what feminist theology can bring to discussions about reform in the Church. She, too, follows the See-Judge-Act methodology, beginning with an overview of the situation of women in Latin America, with special reference to a couple of case studies, Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, and Chile, looking in the first instance at how women are abused and killed, and in the second at attempts to work towards gender-equality45. These contrasting examples are important because they point both to the reality of abuse and ill-treatment of women46, and to places where efforts are being made to do something about them. Azcuy then goes on to look at what she terms the “inclusive ecclesiology” of Vatican II, beginning with a brief look at some of the women auditors of the Council47, a novelty for Church councils. Along with the presence of observers from other Christian communities, this was a strong visual sign of the desire of the Council to be more inclusive. This was backed up by the theology that the Council espoused48, especially 44. V.R. AZCUY, Indicios para una reforma de la iglesia en clave inclusiva: Anhelos de igualdad y aportes eclesiológicos que buscan florecer, in PRADA et al., (eds.), Iglesia que camina (n. 8), 333-370. 45. Ibid., pp. 337-342. 46. As a small indication of the ongoing problems suffered by women in the region, on the day that I was writing this paragraph, news came out of the action by a group of female Brazilian sports journalists, protesting at the harassment they experience doing their job. Under the heading “Let her work”, the movement seeks for an end to sexual harassment at work: see https://veja.abril.com.br/esporte/deixaelatrabalhar-jornalistas-de-esporte-lancam-manifesto/. 47. See AZCUY, Indicios para una reforma (n. 44), pp. 345-348. She gives on p. 347, footnote 40, the names of twenty-three women who attended the session in 1964. The first name on her list, Marie Louise Monnet (1902-1988), was the founder of one of the offshoots of Action catholique, Action catholique des milieux indépendants. Her brother was Jean Monnet, an influential figure in the foundation of the European Union. 48. Though here we can remember Schickendantz’s point about the way in which the methodology was received.

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the re-evaluation of the relationship between clergy and laity. Azcuy sees the openings provided by this change as having been developed through contributions from feminist theology over the past fifty years49. Most of the works she refers to are by North American authors50, but she seeks to show how women have re-imagined the possibility of what the Church could be at a more inclusive level. She then goes on to examine more recent works by writers from Europe and Latin America, pointing to the ministerial (not necessarily sacerdotal) possibilities that the theology of the People of God might be thought to open up, for women and indeed for men. IV. CONCLUSION The three chapters that I have examined here are, I think, representative of the broader engagement with the theme of reform as viewed by Latin American theologians at present. They show the need for an ecclesiology that is inclusive, rooted in its context, and that is partial. The Church must be reformed towards God, but towards God present in the poor. The current situation in many Latin American countries is testament to the ongoing need for this conversion. This is not so much a problem of the Church itself, but of the larger context, where the advances, which were many, that were made in the first decade of the twenty-first century seem to be under threat. This is partly for economic reasons, as recovery from the financial crash of 2008-2009 continues slowly, with a protectionist president in the United States only adding to the problems. However much dependency theory may have been rejected51, the fact remains that producers of raw materials do need people to buy them, and complex chains of supply and demand do not favour them in times of recession, or even in times of slow growth.

49. See AZCUY, Indicios para una reforma (n. 44), pp. 354-361. 50. She mentions, for example, Anne Carr, Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Letty M. Russell, and Elizabeth Johnson. Among Latin American / Hispanic authors she mentions in this section María Pilar Aquino. 51. A critique of the particular brand of dependency theory used by liberation theology can be found in I. PETRELLA, The Future of Liberation Theology: An Argument and a Manifesto, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004, pp. 71-84. D.S. LONG, Divine Economy: Theology and the Market, London, Routledge, 2001, p. 115, notes that liberation theology has largely abandoned dependency theory as a heuristic tool. See too W.K. HEINDL, Armut und Entwicklung in der Entwicklungstheorie, in M. HOLZTRATTNER (ed.), Eine vorrangige Option für die Armen im 21. Jahrhundert?, Innsbruck, Tyrolia, 2005, 339-354.

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But there are also ways in which the oligarchies which have in practice ruled many Latin American countries since the colonial times are fighting back. In the country that I know best, Brazil, this has been very clear, with political machinations being used to exclude the left and its leaders on ostensibly judicial grounds. But the same is going on elsewhere to different degrees. Moreover, the neo-fascist populism that is thriving in sectors of the United States and Europe is present in Latin America too, where social media is very prevalent and fake news has been around for longer than the expression itself. Against this background, the Church, or more concretely the Roman Catholic Church, continues to play a role, even if in many countries that role is decreasing with the continued growth of neo-Pentecostalism, in its various forms. The prophetic part that the Church played under the dictatorships is still needed, and the presence of a Latin American Pope has strengthened that role, even as the opposition that grew in confidence under John Paul II and Benedict XVI remains present. At the very least, there has been a resurgence in liberation theology in the past few years, as many of its representatives feel that the Church that they understood Vatican II to be advocating is being implemented. This is, I think, all true and important. But a few critical comments are in place. The See-Judge-Act methodology is one that I find very helpful and convincing, but precisely for that reason, it demands a critical engagement. The major criticism is to do with what is seen and whether it is possible to look at anything without having made a prior decision – what Gadamer would call Vorurteil (prejudice or pre-judgement) or Heidegger Vormeinung. To look to reform the Church in certain areas almost inevitably will lead to other areas being ignored. The response to this is, with Schickendantz, to insist on the need for continual discernment, so that the whole Church is always subject to reform, but recognising that the reform itself is always also only partial. A second criticism concerns the role of the Holy Spirit. I think that Codina in his paper at least tries to engage with a pneumatology that will be genuinely transformative. But neither Schickendantz nor especially Azcuy have much place for the Holy Spirit in their presentations, despite the fact that one might argue that a greater emphasis on pneumatology would contribute to a more inclusive theology. Or to put it the other way around, an inclusive theology that excludes one of the Persons of the Trinity is somewhat paradoxical. This is arguably a problem for liberation theology, one of the strengths of which has been its Christocentrism, where the person of Jesus, the Crucified and Risen One, has been fundamental, as the decisive response of the Father to the cry of the poor.

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Codina is trying to argue that this cry is made in the Spirit and the response comes through the intervention of the Spirit in the world. No doubt both Schickendantz and Azcuy would agree with this, but their contributions may benefit from a more explicit attention to this fact. Nevertheless, all three authors do point to the need for a Church that is not simply always reforming, but to use a more theological language, a Church that is undergoing a permanent metanoia, a turn to the poor, to the excluded and marginalized, to the world in which we live. And this is never a turn away from God, but a turn to the Holy Spirit, the life-maker, the life-giver, the one through whom creation is sustained and supported on the journey to fullness of life in this one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Charles University Evangelická teologická fakulta Černá 9 115 55 Praha 1 Czech Republic [email protected]

Tim NOBLE

BEYOND HIERARCHICAL FIXATION PEOPLE OF GOD AND “DEMOCRATISATION” OF CHURCH STRUCTURES – A CATHOLIC PERSPECTIVE

I. THE ELEPHANT

IN THE

ROOM

“These of course are not governed by the rules of parliamentary democracy”1. Pope John Paul II stressed this when talking about the structures of participation in church governance in his 2001 Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte – his focus was on structures that are envisaged by canon law, such as pastoral councils. Although an analogy between synodality in the Church and democracy in civil society (at least here in the West) seems to be obvious, one cannot help but get the impression that whenever a possible “democratisation” of church structures is referred to, a set of stereotypes is brought forward against such a suggestion. Some of these represent quite imbalanced alternatives, like “Who governs the Church – God or His people?” or “Kingdom of God” versus “democracy of God’s People”. Inevitably one feels tempted to ask what the implied converse would be: If the Catholic Church must not be a democracy, is it then a monarchy, governed by a papal king and a number of episcopal dukes? For centuries, more concretely since Catholic theology tried to respond to Enlightenment ideas, the official answer was a more elegant one: The Catholic Church is the societas perfecta, the perfect society2. This was shorthand for stating that the Church contains all of the means necessary to reach its purpose in itself and is thus independent from the state. 1. JOHN PAUL II, Novo Millennio Ineunte 45 (6/1/2001), in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 93 (2001) 266-309; 298. English: https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_ letters/2001/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20010106_novo-millennio-ineunte.html (accessed 20/6/2019). 2. After the term was already popular with Pius IX, Leo XIII defined it in his Encyclical Immortale Dei in 1885 (DH 3167): “10. This society is made up of men, just as civil society is, and yet is supernatural and spiritual, on account of the end for which it was founded, and of the means by which it aims at attaining that end. Hence, it is distinguished and differs from civil society, and, what is of highest moment, it is a society chartered as of right divine, perfect in its nature and in its title, to possess in itself and by itself, through the will and loving kindness of its Founder, all needful provision for its maintenance and action”; http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_ 01111885_immortale-dei.html (accessed 20/6/2019).

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Yet in a memorable speech at the Second Vatican Council, the Bishop of Bruges, Émile J. De Smedt, linked the societas perfecta model with triumphalism, clericalism, juridicism, and episcopal and papal idolatry3 – this was language unheard of so far at the Council. He proposed that all this be replaced with “a spirit of service rather than self-assertive power”4. Even if the Church is more than a sociological entity, it often gets overlooked that church structures are co-dependent on historical forms and paradigms. History teaches that the shape and structures of the Church have always been developed in exchange with society, in reception, adaptation or repudiation of different governing structures and institutions. Nothing proves this malleability better than the papacy itself in its different forms throughout the centuries. Only a few years after the Council, in connection with the social debate on fundamental democratisation after 1968, a heated debate about a potential democratisation of the Church took place, which did not get off to a good start5. Yet is, upon reflection, the underlying issue really that democratic structures within hierarchical church settings are not possible and would clash with God’s Kingdom? Who would seriously expect that today a church with huge participatory deficits and growing distance from the people’s lives and needs is heard and respected as the advocate of justice and mercy in society – not to mention the repercussions on the proclamation of the Gospel by giving such an example? This contribution seeks to counter the rush to polarised stereotypes and simplistic solutions and takes into account that terms such as “democratisation” can carry an overlay of unwanted messages. Even if we assume that an analogy between genuinely Christian traditional structures of church governance and certain elements of democracy is obvious, we still 3. Unfortunately, the complaints over papal idolatry were not unfounded in NeoUltramontanism, cf. R. AUBERT, Le pontificat de Pie IX (Histoire de l’Église, 21), Paris, Bloud & Gay, 1952, pp. 302f. who quotes pope hymns which in the Breviary are addressed to the Holy Spirit. 4. Cf. for this speech on 1st December 1962, É.J. DE SMEDT, Acta Synodalia I/IV, Città del Vaticano, Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1971, pp. 142-144; G. PHILIPS, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: History of the Constitution, trans. K. SMYTH, in H. VORGRIMLER (ed.), Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, vol. 1, New York, Herder and Herder, 1967, 105-137, p. 109. 5. Cf. K. RAHNER, Demokratie in der Kirche?, in Stimmen der Zeit 182 (1968) 1-15; J. RATZINGER, Demokratisierung der Kirche?, in ID. – H. MAIER, Demokratie in der Kirche: Möglichkeiten und Grenzen, Limburg – Kevelaer, Lahn-Verlag (1st ed. 1970) 2000, 7-46; the thematic issue Demokratisierung der Kirche, Concilium 7 (1971) no. 3; with repercussions even like G. ALBERIGO, Ekklesiologie und Demokratie: Konvergenzen und Divergenzen, in Concilium 28 (1992) 362-370.

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keep in mind that – as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 already stated – the dissimilarity remains infinitely greater than any similarity (DH 806). Thus, our main question is not whether democratic elements like the basic equality of all citizens, their active participation in discerning and decision making, the electing of a body of representatives etc. correspond one to one to ecclesiological notions like the common priesthood of all the baptized, sensus fidelium, synodality and collegiality. Our question rather is how these latter elements can be properly employed in the Catholic Church today. One certainly can claim that foundational “democratic” ideas like freedom, equality and dignity stand in a causal relation to the Christian dignity of all human beings as created in God’s image and as brothers and sisters in Christ. Thus the point of this contribution is not to introduce to the Church “alien” structures or methods from civil society that in the course of time might even turn out to be questionable or flawed, but to start from the Church’s own experience: from the gospel message of Jesus of Nazareth, from the witness of the first Christians and from the Church’s life throughout the ages. This, in fact, is the idea of “reform” in the literal sense of re-formare: to overcome past misleading developments by returning to an even older and more genuine past6. This very pattern has been employed for centuries to justify reform and to ensure the continuity of the Church with the early testimonies about Jesus Christ. II. PRIESTHOOD OF ALL THE BAPTIZED AND SHARING IN CHRIST’S THREEFOLD MINISTRY This very pattern was also employed by a young Augustinian monk who in 1520 wrote To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate. At the beginning Martin Luther, instead of founding a new church named after himself, had intended to assiduously reform and renew the Catholic Church. For this he made recourse to 1 Pe 2,4-10, like others before him. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae had for instance referred to the participation of the faithful in Christ’s priesthood7. Luther himself called this the 6. The hermeneutical basis that makes this possible could be summarised with J.H. NEWMAN, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine p. 40, in the observation that Christianity “changes […] in order to remain the same” (Newman’s Works, 24 [uniform ed.], 36 vols., London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1868-81). 7. THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa Theologiae, IIIª q. 63 a. 3 co.: “Totus autem ritus Christianae religionis derivatur a sacerdotio Christi. Et ideo manifestum est quod character

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universal or general priesthood of all baptised and understood it as the competence of all Christians to interpret God’s Word. In his just mentioned reform tract To the Christian Nobility Luther poignantly summarises this fundamental idea of Lutheran ecclesiology: “For whatever issued from baptism, may boast that it has been consecrated priest, bishop, and Pope”8. On the Catholic side, at the times of the Reformation, this was understood as opposing and abrogating the threefold ministry of deacon, priest and bishop. Therefore, the Council of Trent rejected Luther’s opinion “that all Christians are without distinction priests of the New Testament or that all are equally endowed with the same spiritual power” (DH 1767). Consequently, on the Catholic side, the patristic9 and medieval tradition of the notion of common priesthood based on 1 Pe 2 sank into oblivion. In the documents of the Second Vatican Council, however, the text from 1 Pe plays once more a pivotal role: “you are a chosen race, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, a people to be his personal possession” (1 Pe 2,9). Yet already the conciliar terminology underpins a certain difference from the Lutheran interpretation insofar as the Council does not speak of the universal priesthood but of the common priesthood of all the baptized. “Common” is the decisive characteristic. According to Vatican II, all baptized commonly participate as members of the one People of God in the priestly, prophetic and royal office of Christ. Thus, with the doctrine of the tria munera, i.e. the sharing in Christ’s priestly, prophetic and royal office, another legacy of the Reformation, this time from John Calvin10, has developed an important impact on contemporary Roman Catholic self-understanding and church-life. As sacramentalis specialiter est character Christi, cuius sacerdotio configurantur fideles secundum sacramentales characteres, qui nihil aliud sunt quam quaedam participationes sacerdotii Christi, ab ipso Christo derivatae” (Corpus Thomisticum, http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth4060.html [accessed 20/6/2019]). Cf. also RAINALDUS ROMANUS, Summa Theologiae supplementum, q. 22 a. 6 ad 19. 8. M. LUTHER, An den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation von des christlichen Standes Besserung, in Martin Luther, Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe – Weimarer Ausgabe, vol. 6, ed. J.K.F. KNAAKE et al., Weimar, H. Böhlaus, 1883-1929, 404-469, p. 408, 11-12: “Dan was ausz der tauff krochen ist, das mag sich rumen, das es schon priester, Bischoff und Papst geweyhet sey”. 9. Already TERTULLIAN, De exhortatione castitatis, 7,3, ed. H.-V. FRIEDRICH, Stuttgart, Teubner, 1990, asked: “Nonne et laici sacerdotes sumus? Scriptum est: regnum quoque nos et sacerdotes deo et patri suo fecit”. 10. Cf. J. CALVIN, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. J.T. MCNEILL, trans. F.L. BATTLES (Library of Christian Classics, 20), Philadelphia, PA, Westminster, 1960, pp. 494-503. On the elaboration of this notion by the Reformation cf. R.J. SHERMAN, King, Priest and Prophet: A Trinitarian Theology of Atonement, New York – London, T&T Clark, 2004.

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distinct from the hierarchical threefold ministry of deacon, priest and bishop, the common priesthood of all the baptised emphasises the common dignity of all which is closely linked to their common responsibility for the life of the Church. All who are baptized are members of the People of God. The traditional language has thus become obsolete which spoke of two tanks, distinctly separated from each other, the clergy on the one hand and the laity on the other11. The aim of the Council was to overcome any “negative” description of the laypeople as non-clerics or not in religious orders and, instead, to present a positive description12. III. THE PEOPLE OF GOD

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As a token of having overcome any lay-clerical dichotomy, Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium contains an entire chapter “On the People of God” (ch. II). It is strategically positioned before the Church’s hierarchical structure is treated, in particular the episcopate (ch. III) and the laity (ch. IV). The Council’s essential priority is to see the Church as a whole. All differentiations are secondary. Instead of being just a mere institution or an unworldly spiritual entity, the Church as “People of God” is rooted in history and is the result of God’s continuous gathering which brings about full equality among its members and promotes dialogue with the world. For this gathering does not happen for the Church’s own sake, but is meant to create “a most certain seed of unity, hope and salvation for the whole human race” (LG 9). Being the pilgrim People of God also highlights the preliminary character of the Church which is in constant tension between earthly existence and eschatological hope. In addition to “People of God”, the Council used other biblical images and metaphors for the Church, like “Body of Christ” and “Temple of the Holy Spirit”. Yet, we have to acknowledge that all these biblical metaphors, despite their helpfulness, ultimately remain abstract. They need to yield concrete practical results. One of their positive consequences is that they introduce a theological criterion which critically asks: Does the visible social structure of the Church serve the Spirit of Christ, who vivifies it and builds it up? Lumen Gentium 8 speaks of the 11. Cf. P. NEUNER, Abschied von der Ständekirche: Plädoyer für eine Theologie des Gottesvolkes, Freiburg i.Br., Herder, 2015. 12. Seminal for this was Y. CONGAR, Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat (1953, French); Lay People in the Church: A Study for a Theology of the Laity, London, Bloomsbury, 1957.

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Church as a “society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ”13. The biblical body metaphor, by stating that the foot is not the hand (cf. 1 Cor 12–14), affirms that differentiation is necessary, even the one between the head and the rest of the body. Yet structuring never means separating or dividing but serves the purpose of a better functioning. The ideal, therefore, is a communio of all who believe, “for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3,28). One of the particular consequences which the terminology “People of God” demands is the common agency and common participation of all. Already in an address on 20 February 1946 Pope Pius XII said about all the faithful: “they must arrive at an ever-clearer awareness of the fact that they not only belong to the Church but that they are the Church”14. Consequently, for Vatican II it is of fundamental importance that the entire messianic People of God is responsible for proclaiming the paschal hope and the boundless mercy of God to the world, not just the few ordained on behalf of the others. As Yves Congar put it shortly after the Council, “[t]he Church is not a pyramid whose passive base receives everything from the apex”15. The idea of a participatio actuosa is not restricted to the liturgy only. A participatory interaction on a local, regional and universal level as well as between these levels is paramount. For “[t]he mission of the Church is entrusted to the whole of the Church and thus to all Christians together. Nobody is only object; all are also subject in the Church”16. These insights of the Council have been reaffirmed by Pope Francis: It is the whole People of God who proclaims the Gospel; the people, rather than being object of evangelisation, is agent and subject of it. As he summarises in Evangelii Gaudium:

13. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium (1965), in A. FLANNERY (ed.), Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, vol. 1, reprint of 1975, Mumbai, St Pauls, 2010, 320-390. 14. PIUS XII, Saluto ai nuovi cardinali, in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 38 (1946) 141-151, p. 149: “Sotto questo aspetto, Venerabili Fratelli, i fedeli […] debbono avere una sempre più chiara consapevolezza, non soltanto di appartenere alla Chiesa; ma di essere la Chiesa, vale a dire la comunità dei fedeli sulla terra sotto la condotta del Capo comune, il papa, e dei Vescovi in comunione con lui”. This would have been even more convincing, if he had not spoken about “they” [the faithful], but of “we”. 15. Y. CONGAR, Pneumatology Today, in American Ecclesiastical Review 167 (1973) 435-449, p. 443. 16. W. KASPER, Katholische Kirche – Wesen, Wirklichkeit, Sendung, Freiburg i.Br., Herder, 2011, p. 293: “Die Sendung der Kirche ist der Kirche in ihrer Gesamtheit und somit allen Christen gemeinsam anvertraut. Niemand ist nur Objekt, alle sind auch Subjekt in der Kirche”.

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The Church, as the agent of evangelization, is more than an organic and hierarchical institution; she is first and foremost a people advancing on its pilgrim way towards God. She is certainly a mystery rooted in the Trinity, yet she exists concretely in history as a people of pilgrims and evangelizers, transcending any institutional expression, however necessary (EG 111)17.

Looking back at Vatican II, these notions paved the way to the Council’s rediscovery of synodality as a constitutive characteristic of the structure of the Church. From the earliest times, the Church was geared towards the “synodos”, the coming together par excellence, the Eucharist. Soon enough the gathering together was also used as an instrument for governing the Church according to the adage “Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractari debet” – “what concerns all needs to be discerned by all”. Moreover, “[s]ynodality is the practical expression of the participation by the local Church in the life and ministry of the universal Church”18. Therefore, synodal elements, which had been a common church governing instrument in the Early Church, were re-instituted in the wake of the Second Vatican Council at the local, regional, and universal level of the Church. They are meant to offer the possibility that all members of the Church can voice their opinions, that they can be heard, and that they can participate in an orderly manner in decision making. IV. THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN DECISION MAKING On this basis we now need to address what the current state of affairs is regarding an active participation of the whole People of God in church governance. This brings us, for a moment, to the realm of canon law. The second book of the 1983 Code of Canon Law is also entitled The People of God19. In part I it deals with The Christian Faithful. Can. 208 attributes them fundamental equality “regarding dignity and action” 17. On the background of this understanding in the Latin American Theology of the People, cf. J.C. SCANNONE, Pope Francis and the Theology of the People, in Theological Studies 77 (2016) 118-135. 18. W. NAPIER, What Made Synod 2014 and 2015 So Interesting? Collegiality and Synodality!, in The Jurist 76 (2016) 327-338, p. 329. 19. Pope JOHN PAUL II, Sacrae Disciplinae Leges speaks about a translation of conciliar into canonical language: “Indeed, in a certain sense, this new Code could be understood as a great effort to translate this same doctrine, that is, the conciliar ecclesiology, into canonical language. If, however, it is impossible to translate perfectly into canonical language the conciliar image of the Church, nevertheless, in this image there should always be found as far as possible its essential point of reference”; http://w2.vatican.va/ content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_25011983_sacraedisciplinae-leges.html (accessed 20/6/2019).

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on the basis of “their rebirth in Christ” and can. 204 §1 defines who they are, namely those who, inasmuch as they have been incorporated in Christ through baptism, have been constituted as the people of God. For this reason, made sharers in their own way in Christ’s priestly, prophetic, and royal function, they are called to exercise the mission which God has entrusted to the Church to fulfil in the world, in accord with the condition proper to each20.

Paragraph 2 of the same canon however immediately continues: “This Church, constituted and organized in this world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church governed by the successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him” – no one else is mentioned who governs. Thus, although all the faithful equally share in the tria munera of Christ and the mission of the Church, it is canonically not envisaged that they all also have an equal share in the governing of the Church, corresponding to the royal office of Christ. To all the committees and bodies, especially to the pastoral councils on parish level (can. 536ff.) and on diocesan level (can. 512ff.), which had been instituted in the wake of Vatican II, canon law puts a “consultative-only” label. Consequently, this means that issues like representation, co-responsibility, transparency, accountability, collegiality and subsidiarity remain unaddressed. Yet the most serious consequence is that, when push comes to shove, these synodal structures are even dispensable – as could be seen when the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was Bishop of Regensburg21. A telling example is the diocesan synod: Can. 460 defines it as “a group of selected priests and other members of the Christian faithful of a particular church”. They represent the diversity of the local church and comprise laypeople and clergy22. Their task is described in a relatively broad way as to “offer assistance to the diocesan bishop for the good of the whole diocesan community”. Can. 466, however, continues “The only legislator in a diocesan synod is the diocesan bishop; the other 20. This and the following quotes are taken from Code of Canon Law (1983); http:// www.vatican.va/archive/eng1104/_index.htm (accessed 20/6/2019). 21. They can even be abolished by the bishop, as Gerhard Ludwig Müller did in November 2005 in Regensburg, thus ignoring the decisions of the Würzburger Synode; cf. the documentation in J. GRABMEIER – H. GEISSLER – S. SEVERIN, Kirchlicher Rechtsweg – vatikanische Sackgasse! Kirchliches Rechtssystem in der römisch-katholischen Kirche endgültig gescheitert – dargestellt an einem konkreten Fall eines hierarchischen Rekurses von Regensburg bis Rom zur Mitwirkung der Laien in der Kirche, Schierling, Animus, 2012. 22. Cf. B. KRANEMANN – M. WIJLENS (eds.), Gesendet in den Weinberg des Herrn: Laien in der katholischen Kirche heute und morgen, Würzburg, Echter, 2010.

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members of the synod possess only a consultative vote”. Again this governing structure receives the stamp “consultative only”. A similar fate is shared by the Synod of Bishops: Can. 342 defines it as a group of bishops who have been chosen from different regions of the world and meet together at fixed times to foster closer unity between the Roman Pontiff and bishops, to assist the Roman Pontiff with their counsel in the preservation and growth of faith and morals and in the observance and strengthening of ecclesiastical discipline, and to consider questions pertaining to the activity of the Church in the world.

Despite this vast task description, again this body has only a consultative function. Thus, the pattern of decision making by these synodal structures in the Church is not just that it is done by “clerics only”, excluding laypeople; it rather seems to consist in the decision of one person after a non-obligatory consultation with a synodal gathering. Does this not rather resemble monarchic or autocratic than democratic structures and is this not worse? Admittedly, it includes the right of individuals or groups to express a consultative vote but it does neither guarantee that they are heard nor does it grant them any share in decision making. The habit of the Early Church to seek unanimity23 or a magnus consensus is apparently restricted to ecumenical councils in current Roman Catholic canon law. It seems that in this respect canon law does not live up to Vatican II expectations. According to them, synodality were to defy the tendency to divide the Church into a teaching hierarchy (or Ecclesia docens) on the one side and an Ecclesia discens, a listening, obedient people on the other. As a whole, the People of God preserves the faith and passes it on; as a whole, it celebrates the sacraments and, as a whole, it performs its ministry in the world. The fact that, after the Second Vatican Council, the synods at all levels have hardly any decision-making competences is a sign of a development that only loosely follows the intention of the last Council. To sum up, if the Church is divided into a clergy who decides, and a laity who obeys and, at best, advises, then this contradicts the image of the People of God, as the Scriptures draw it, as the Early Church lived it, and as the Second Vatican Council sought to recapture it.

23. This not necessarily means a unanimous vote.

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V. REVIVED SYNODALITY AND POPE FRANCIS Yet, “[i]t is precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the Church of the third millennium”24. By stating this, Pope Francis initiated a new phase in the reception of Vatican II, especially in the reception of its People of God ecclesiology. Being together (syn-) on the way (hodos), as the etymology of synod suggests, precludes any form of Roman centralism. From an ecclesiological perspective, above all three important elements come to the fore. They are traditional features of the Church and by no means new. Yet their practical application is somewhat suppressed25 or currently underdeveloped while a monarchic pattern prevails over a synodal, collegial, and subsidiary approach. These features are: (1) listening and discussing, (2) discerning and consensus building (here the keyword is sensus fidelium), and (3) collegial cooperation of the entire People of God which is tantamount to a ministry both in and vis-à-vis the community. 1. A Church Which Listens and Disputes “A synodal Church is a Church which listens”26. First of all, it listens to the Word of God and to where the Holy Spirit wants to guide it in its search of understanding the faith. This is the prayerful, spiritual aspect of a synod. Neither the act of believing, nor the act of searching to understand the faith is reserved to the hierarchy only. Rather it is the task of all the faithful who in doing so should listen to one another. In order that there is something to listen to, however, there must be open discussion among diverse agents. The diversity of opinions, life styles etc. within the People of God must not be ignored. Lumen Gentium 13 takes the internal differentiation of the People of God into account and assigns to the pope the task to protect the legitimate varieties27. This discussing and listening is anything but obvious. To give a bad example from the meanwhile more than 50 years of Synods of Bishops: The Synod on the Vocation and Mission of the Laity in the Church and in the World 24. FRANCIS, Address of His Holiness Pope Francis at the Ceremony of Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Institution of the Synod of Bishops on October 17, 2015; http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/october/documents/papafrancesco_20151017_50-anniversario-sinodo.html (accessed 8/6/2019). 25. On the suppressed traditions in the history of the Church cf. H. WOLF, Krypta: Unterdrückte Traditionen der Kirchengeschichte, München, Beck, 2015. 26. FRANCIS, Address at the 50th Anniversary of the Synod of Bishops (n. 24). 27. Lumen Gentium 13: “legitimas varietates tuetur et simul invigilat ut particularia, nedum unitati noceant, ei potius inserviant”.

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in 1987 was prepared without official consultation of the laity. Instead of a transparent process, secrecy was enjoined on the bishops’ conferences regarding their answers to the Lineamenta. The synod itself, with 231 bishops and others with the right of voting and 60 lay auditors, “was a disappointment for those whose people-of-God theology emphasizes first the sharing of new life in Christ among all the baptized and then opens up the actual functioning of church order to new scrutiny and evaluation”28. Thus, listening is not enough. There also has to be candour in a free and open discussion of the real issues. When concluding the 2015 Synod on the Family Pope Francis could at least state: In the course of this Synod, the different opinions which were freely expressed – and at times, unfortunately, not in entirely well-meaning ways – certainly led to a rich and lively dialogue; they offered a vivid image of a church which does not simply ‘rubberstamp’, but draws from the sources of her faith living waters to refresh parched hearts29.

2. Sensus fidei as sensus fidelium Before any action can be taken, discerning and consensus-building are necessary steps. Since the People of God receives God’s Word directly, Vatican II30 did not hesitate to say: The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One (cf. 1 Jn 2,20.27), cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole people’s supernatural discernment in matters of faith when ‘from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful’ they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals (LG 12).

The instrument for discerning matters of faith is the sensus fidei of the faithful by which for instance, as John Henry Newman in his treatise On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine demonstrated31, during the Arian crisis of the fourth century, the true faith was maintained and saved, showing the pivotal role of reception. 28. S. O’RIORDAN, The Synod on the Laity, 1987, in The Furrow 39/1 (1988) 3-12, p. 12. 29. FRANCIS, Address of His Holiness Pope Francis in Conclusion of the Synod of Bishops (24 October, 2015); http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/ october/documents/papa-francesco_20151024_sinodo-conclusione-lavori.html (accessed 23/6/2019). 30. During the Council cf. already G. THILS, L’infaillibilité du peuple chrétien “in credendo”: Notes de théologie posttridentine (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 21), Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1963. 31. J.H. NEWMAN, On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine (1st ed. 1859), London, Collins, 1961.

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About this “instinct of faith”, Pope Francis observes in Evangelii Gaudium that due to the Spirit’s sanctifying power the infallible in credendo of the People of God “means that it does not err in faith, even though it may not find words to explain that faith” (EG 119). In his address at the ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of instituting the Synod of Bishops on 17th October, 2015, Pope Francis further clarified that the synodal principle provides a communication instrument for the sensus fidei which in turn “prevents a rigid separation between an Ecclesia docens and an Ecclesia discens, since the flock likewise has an instinctive ability to discern the new ways that the Lord is revealing to the Church”32. So far, so good. Yet, the sensus fidei always manifests itself as sensus fidelium, i.e. in a plurality of testimonies, since faith is always personal faith and bears a personal signature. The identity of the Christian faith is at stake when this faith is articulated in a plurality of testimonies, yet if their harmony is not immediately apparent and if these testimonies also remain behind what they actually claim to say. No doubt, the legitimate concern for unity on the one hand and the respect for the competence of the faithful regarding their sensus fidei on the other can compete, especially if a plurality of viewpoints is combined with the principle of religious freedom. How does the sensus fidelium become a consensus fidelium? What are adequate structures and instruments for consensusbuilding? Without conflict there is no consensus. This truism also applies to the Church. Conflicts result from the necessarily different subjective perspectives, which allow people to see and describe the same facts differently. These differences can cause misunderstandings. Even if one does not immediately think of apostasy or heresy, but only of everyday differences of opinion, this requires transparent and accepted regulation mechanisms. In the history of the Church synods have always been instruments for conflict control. Consensus-building requires the cooperation of all the faithful and the search for a consensus is a process in which all are to be involved. It requires the seeking of a “differentiated or differentiating” consensus which takes diverging opinions seriously (even if the differentiation may not always be as elaborate as in some ecumenical texts33. 32. FRANCIS, Address at the 50th Anniversary of the Synod of Bishops (n. 24). In referring to the “ecclesia docens” and “discens” the Pope bases himself on the document by the INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL COMMISSION, Sensus fidei in the Life of the Church, 4 (2014); http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_ cti_20140610_sensus-fidei_en.html (accessed 3/6/2019). 33. On the definition of a differentiated consensus cf. L. ULRICH, Differenzierter Konsens und Komplementarität, in H. WAGNER (ed.), Einheit − aber wie? Zur Tragfähigkeit

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In a Catholic understanding the principle of the horizontal, synchronous consensus is always combined with a vertical, diachronic consensus: with Scripture and Tradition34. It is like a perichoresis of ressourcement and aggiornamento. In continuity with its permanently normative origin in the Gospel, the Church must seek the least mistakable expression of this Gospel and the most transparent and beneficial form of its own structures. As Hermann Josef Pottmeyer explains, it is not just a matter of listening to the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures and the way it is transmitted by the Church, but of perceiving what God wants to say to the Church today in the Holy Spirit and what he wants her to do. This includes the conversion of the hearts from insistence on their own opinion and will to the willingness to take the other – ‘God’ – and the ‘others’ – one’s fellow believers – seriously. This is exactly what dialogue means: the truth of faith does not only consist in the truth of the content of faith, but also in the truth of the way in which this content is found and accepted35.

3. Collegial Cooperation within the People of God As we have seen, the common priesthood of all the baptized is foundational, both for the service of the laypeople and of the ordained ministry. There is a unity of vocation. Nevertheless, the People of God is characterised by a certain vis-à-vis, which is given in the ordained ministry. It has an authority which is not founded on being delegated by the members of the congregation. Yet while distinguishing the different ministries, already Cyprian of Carthage (†258) knew that the unity of der ökumenischen Formel vom ‘differenzierten Konsens’ (Quaestiones Disputatae, 184), Freiburg i.Br. – Basel – Wien, Herder, 2000, 102-113, p. 112: A differentiated consensus states that “1. im Dialog volle Übereinstimmung erzielt worden ist in dem, was zum Grundlegenden einer bestimmten Glaubensaussage gehört, und 2. auch Übereinstimmung erzielt worden ist, daß die verbleibenden Differenzen in Bezug auf die betreffende Glaubensaussage nicht nur legitim, sondern auch bedeutungsvoll sind und die volle Übereinstimmung im Grundlegenden nicht mehr in Frage stellen”. 34. Cf. H.J. SIEBEN, Die Konzilsidee der Alten Kirche (Konzilsgeschichte Reihe B: Untersuchungen), Paderborn, Schöningh, 1979, p. 313; horizontal consensus pp. 324-330; vertical consensus: pp. 331-335. 35. H.J. POTTMEYER, Die Mitsprache der Gläubigen in Glaubenssachen: Eine alte Praxis und ihre Wiederentdeckung, in Internationale Katholische Zeitschrift Communio 25 (1996) 134-147, p. 147: “Es geht nicht nur darum, auf das Wort Gottes in der Heiligen Schrift und in seiner Überlieferung durch die Kirche zu hören, sondern wahrzunehmen, was Gott der Kirche heute im heiligen Geist sagen und wozu er sie heute bewegen will. Das schließt die Bekehrung der Herzen vom Beharren auf eigenem Meinen und Wollen zu der Bereitschaft ein, den ‘anderen’ – Gott – und die ‘anderen’ – die Mitglaubenden – ernstzunehmen – eben genau das, was Dialog heißt: Zur Wahrheit des Glaubens gehört nicht nur die Wahrheit des Inhalts, sondern auch die Wahrheit des Weges, auf dem diese gefunden und angenommen wird”.

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vocation necessitates bodies of joint consultation and consensus-building in a participatory and collegial style. Admittedly his “Nihil sine episcopo”, “nothing without the bishop”, is usually referred to as the classical example to prove that bishops and the hierarchy have the sole responsibility in the Church. Yet one needs to read on, “nihil sine consilio vestro”, “nothing without the counsel of the presbyters”, he writes in Epistle 14, and “nihil sine consensu plebis”, “nothing without the consent of the people”. In fact, he does nothing on his own judgement, but only decides on the basis of joint consultation and examination36. Also today it is absolutely vital for the Church that the ministry not only listens to the testimony of the entire People of God, including the laity, but takes it seriously. Besides, most of the religious orders, congregations and institutes of apostolic life show that the model of leadership in collegial cooperation is by no means alien to some structures in the Catholic Church. Usually, in these institutions the abbot or abbess, superior or provincial are supported in their task of leadership by a “Chapter”, “Council”, or however the group elected for a certain period of time might be called37. After they have served their term, they usually step back into the ordinary ranks of their communities. This specific form of organisation vouchsafes cooperation and collegiality. Despite these alternative forms of collegial cooperation in leadership, during the two Synods on the Family in 2014 and 201538 it became quite evident that the area in which the Catholic Church is still struggling severely with the synodal principle is the interplay of the synodal and the hierarchical order of the Church. How are they supposed to be related? First of all, it is important to realise that the hierarchy in the Church is not the same as the structure of the Church but only one structural element. At the 50th anniversary of the Synod of Bishops, Pope Francis explains the ecclesial understanding of hierarchy: as in an inverted pyramid, the top is located beneath the base. Consequently, those who exercise authority are called “ministers”, because, in the original meaning of the word, they are the least of all. It is in serving the people of 36. CYPRIAN, Epistula 14:4 (CSEL 3/2, 512, 17-19): “nihil potui, quando a primordio episcopatus mei statuerim nihil sine consilio uestro et sine consensu plebis mea priuatim sententia gerere”. 37. Cf. for instance how the Missionaries of Africa are organised https://mafrome.org/ about-us/who-we-are/ (accessed 19/6/2019). 38. Cf. D.M. HASCHKE, Demokratie in der Kirche? Über den Anspruch und die Möglichkeiten einer Demokratisierung der Kirche im Spiegel der Bischofssynode, in W. REES – L. MÜLLER (eds.), Synodale Prozesse in der katholischen Kirche, Innsbruck, Innsbruck University Press, 2016, 35-54.

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God that each bishop becomes, for that portion of the flock entrusted to him, vicarius Christi, the vicar of that Jesus who at the Last Supper bent down to wash the feet of the Apostles (cf. Jn 13:1-15)39.

If hierarchy is understood like this, then the ordained are not Christians in some higher degree. Moreover, if hierarchy is understood as an inverted pyramid, then, as the Pope continues, “[s]ynodality, as a constitutive element of the Church, offers us the most appropriate interpretive framework for understanding the hierarchical ministry itself”40. For it calls for applying the principle of subsidiarity based on the respect for the competence of all the baptized in credendo. And it stipulates that the principle of collegiality be consistently applied on all levels. This, firstly, means to enhance the collegiality of the bishops among each other by nations and by continents, as the episcopal conferences do41. In order to strengthen this intermediary level with more competences, Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium attributes the bishops’ conferences even a genuine doctrinal authority42. Secondly, this means the collegiality of the bishops with the pope so that they always act cum Petro et sub Petro. Yet, as Pope Francis points out, this is not a centralisation or “a limitation of freedom, but a guarantee of unity”43. Primacy and collegiality are not meant to be opposed, but to complement each other. Thirdly and most importantly, this means the collegiality of the bishops with clergy and laity which goes far beyond being just the manager or main administrator of a diocese. A communicative and participatory style of leading the Church comprises a new style of brotherly and sisterly togetherness of bishops, priests, laity and those in religious orders. This would help to answer the question what collegiality brings to bear on growing individualism, on the one hand, and excessive globalisation on the other, on the encounter with world religions and on the creeping increase in numbers of those leaving the 39. FRANCIS, Address at the 50th Anniversary of the Synod of Bishops (n. 24). 40. Ibid. 41. This is based on the Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops Christus Dominus 37 and 38. 42. Cf. FRANCIS, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium on the Proclamation of the Gospel in Today’s World (24 November, 2013) no. 32, in: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 105 (2013) 1019-1137. This stands in a certain contrast with J. RATZINGER, Zur Lage des Glaubens: Ein Gespräch mit Vittorio Messori, München – Zürich – Wien, Verlag Neue Stadt, 1985, pp. 59f.: “Wir dürfen nicht vergessen, daß die Bischofskonferenzen keine theologische Grundlage haben, sie gehören nicht zur unaufgebbaren Struktur der Kirche, so wie sie von Christus gewollt ist: sie haben nur eine praktische, konkrete Funktion”. 43. FRANCIS, Address at the 50th Anniversary of the Synod of Bishops (n. 24).

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Church. Ultimately, such an appropriation of collegial structures would neither be new nor a mere reorganization, but it would mean to really “understand how collegial structures in the church must be an earthly icon of the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”44. VI. LOOKING BACK FROM

AN

ECUMENICAL PERSPECTIVE

By way of conclusion, let us look back from an ecumenical perspective. Luther had started out from the idea of the universal priesthood of all believers. Yet in 1523 he had to intervene against the activities of radical sectarians like Karlstadt and Müntzer. Around the same time serious peasant revolts broke out which likewise made recourse to Luther’s On the Freedom of a Christian. As an emergency solution, the power did no longer stay with the freely constituted congregations but shifted to the territorial princes. Luther increasingly favoured the territorial Church administration advocating that inasmuch as secular rulers are also baptized and share the same faith and the same Scripture, they too are priests and bishops and their office must be taken seriously as an office of the Christian community. This only came to an end after the First World War, at least in Germany. As the Protestant lawyer Hans Liermann put it: “The turn came in 1918 with the abolition of the princely summus episcopus, an office which despite the provisional character accorded to it by the Reformers had been occupied by an ‘emergency’ bishop for 400 years”45. At the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church made several structural and operational adjustments and set its course towards embarking again on the way of synodality. Undeniably, there have been quite a few difficulties since Vatican II regarding the practical implementation of this. Currently the Catholic Church seems to seriously renew its turn to real synodality (not just to a distorted form of it)46. This has significant ecumenical implications: On the one hand, most bilateral and multilateral dialogue groups mirror the discussion style and spirituality of synods in 44. J.R. QUINN, Vatican Council II: Collegiality and Structures of Communion, in P.G. CROWLEY (ed.), From Vatican II to Pope Francis: Charting a Catholic Future, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 2014, 57-66, p. 62. 45. H. LIERMANN, Bischof (III: im ev. Kirchenrecht), in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 1, Tübingen, Mohr, 31957, p. 1306. 46. This is testified, for instance, by the INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL COMMISSION, Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church (March 2018), http://www.vatican.va/ roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20180302_sinodalita_en.html (accessed 3/6/2019).

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many respects and, even more importantly, pivotal topics related to synodality47, like a collegial cooperation in leadership, have been and are being dealt with in ecumenical documents. Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry, the famous first convergence document by the Faith and Order Commission, states for example that at every level of the Church’s life, “the ordained ministry should be exercised in a personal, collegial and communal way”48. On the other hand, today a synodal constitution is more or less common to all the churches stemming from the Reformation: In the Anglican Communion the episcopal office is integrated into synodal structures (the watchword is: synodally governed, episcopally led); similar structures apply meanwhile to the member churches of the Lutheran World Federation. The Reformed Churches have kept their synodal-presbyterial order ever since the time of the Reformation. Basically, most of these synods are church parliaments with lay majority and are largely in charge of church leadership. The crucial question is whether this element of democratisation already ensures the building of a synodal church. According to Pope Francis, [a] synodal Church is a Church which listens, which realizes that listening “is more than simply hearing”. It is a mutual listening in which everyone has something to learn. The faithful people, the college of bishops, the Bishop of Rome: all listening to each other, and all listening to the Holy Spirit, the “Spirit of truth” (Jn 14:17), in order to know what he “says to the Churches” (Rev 2:7)49.

Putting this ideal into practice is at times in all our churches still a long way to go. Yet it is a way we can now go together ecumenically. KU Leuven Annemarie C. MAYER Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies Sint-Michielsstraat 4 box 3100 BE-3000 Leuven Belgium [email protected] 47. Cf. B.E. HINZE, Are Councils and Synods Decision-Making? A Roman Catholic Conundrum in Ecumenical Perspective, in P.M. COLLINS – M.A. FAHEY (eds.), Receiving “The Nature and Mission of the Church”: Reality and Ecumenical Horizons for the Twenty-First Century (Ecclesiological Investigations, 1), New York, T&T Clark – Continuum, 2008, 69-84. 48. COMMISSION ON FAITH AND ORDER, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry no. 26, in H. MEYER – L. VISCHER (eds.), Growth in Agreement: Reports and Agreed Statements of Ecumenical Conversations on a World Level, vol. 1, New York, Paulist Press; Geneva, World Council of Churches, 1983, 466-503, p. 489. 49. FRANCIS, Address at the 50th Anniversary of the Synod of Bishops (n. 24).

IV REMEMBERING ECUMENICALLY

JAN HUS: BETWEEN REFORM AND REFORMATION

In our theological thinking we shift in between details and generalisations in order to grasp the meaning of where we come from and where we head towards. Both the detail and the generalisation help us to understand past events and their impact, the contributions of various figures that played a significant role in the events, and in some cases, to whom we are related through eschatological hope, as our guides and intercessors. However, if the generalisation is not supported and sometimes challenged by the details, we run the risk of moving in mere constructions. The aim of this chapter is to offer some details that shed light on the figure of Jan Hus. I will show how his work testified to a struggle for the conversion of the Church towards a Christian spirit and a Christian lifestyle1. I also examine his role in the reform of the Catholic Church in the late Middle Ages, as well as Hus’s subsequent symbolic role in different confessional groups, and in ecumenical discussion today. The decision to concentrate on the figure of Jan Hus has the following reasons. Some of Hus’s works are available in Latin, but a number of the most important ones are only in Czech, and there are hardly any translations of Hus’s works into other modern European languages2. Hence, except for those who speak or read Czech, his person and his case is often studied without a proper consideration of the primary sources, and without access to quite a complex debate concerning the role of Jan Hus in his own ecclesial context3. Hence in such debates generalisations tend to dominate. If we * This study is part of the work supported by Charles University Research Centre No. 204052: “Theological Anthropology in Ecumenical Perspective”. 1. I borrow this phrase from THOMAS OF CELANO, The First Life of Saint Francis, London, Triangle, 2000, I.i.1, p. 8. This theme in Hus’s theology has been analysed in my previous study published in French: I. NOBLE, Jean Hus: La réforme de l’Église par la conversion de ses membres à l’esprit chrétien, in M. MALLÈVRE (ed.), Penser les R/réformes aujourd’hui: Actes du colloque tenu à Paris du 12 au 14 avril 2016, Paris, Cerf, 2017, 87-99. 2. An exception is a collection of Letters of John Huss Written during His Exile and Imprisonment, Edinburgh, William White & Co, 1846; reprinted by Andesite Press in 2015; and also a translation of Hus’s Latin work De ecclesia exists in English by David S. Schaff: John HUSS, The Church: De Ecclesia, ed. D. SCHAFF, New York, Scribner’s Sons, 1915 (with numerous reprints). 3. Again there are exceptions, but they are not numerous. Most recently, see P. HABERKERN, Patron Saint and Prophet: Jan Hus in the Bohemian and German Reformations, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016; or T.A. FUDGE, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution in Bohemia, London, I.B. Tauris, 2017.

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want to speak about the boundary where reform and reformation meet, and if we want to seek for improved relations between two ways of caring for the life of the Church, the details are important. Jan Hus (c. 1370-1415) was a Catholic priest, university philosopher and theologian, who was accused of heresy and subsequently burnt at the stake by the Council of Constance. It provoked strong protests in Bohemia, leading eventually to war and alienation from Rome, but also to forms of Catholic Church life that gave greater authority to the local Church. These ways of life lasted for nearly two centuries, and continued to have an impact in the region. Hus came to be either venerated as a saint or condemned as a heretic. This has largely changed. The heritage of Jan Hus is claimed not only by Protestant Churches in the Czech Republic. The local Orthodox Church venerates him as a martyr and a saint, as does the Old Catholic Church4. The Czechoslovak Hussite Church (which does not come historically from the Middle Ages, but separated from the Catholic Church during the Modernist crisis in the twentieth century) adopted a symbolic link with Hus in its very name. The dispute over Hus’s place within Church history has involved a number of theologians from various traditions5. On the Catholic side the need to rehabilitate Jan Hus was first spelled out by the exiled Cardinal Josef Beran of Prague during the Second Vatican Council. In his speech on religious liberty and on the freedom of conscience he said: So, in my country, the Catholic Church at this time seems to be suffering expiation for defects and sins committed in times gone by in her name against religious liberty, such as in the 15th century the burning of the priest John Huss and during the 17th century the forced reconversion of a great part of the Czech people to the Catholic faith under the rule “the people of a territory follow the religion of its ruler”. By such acts, the secular arm, wishing or pretending to serve the Catholic Church, in reality left a hidden wound in the hearts of the people. This trauma was an obstacle to religious progress and offered, and offers still, facile material for agitation to the enemies of the Church. So history also warns us, that in this Council the principle of religious liberty and liberty of conscience must be enunciated in very clear words and without any restrictions, which might stem from opportunistic motives. If we do this, even in the spirit of penance for such sins of the past, the moral authority of our Church will be greatly augmented for the benefit of the world6. 4. The feast falls on the date of his martyrdom, 6 July. 5. These included Stefan Swiezawski or most recently C.V. Pospíšil on the Roman Catholic side, F.M. Bartoš, Amadeo Molnár and Pieter Morée on the Protestant side. 6. In English translation the full text of the speech from 20 September 1965 is at https://vaticaniiat50.wordpress.com/2015/09/20/text-of-prague-cardinals-speech-on-religious-liberty/ (accessed 1/6/2017).

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In 1990 Pope John Paul II during his visit to the then Czechoslovakia appealed to Czech theologians to prepare a re-evaluation of Hus’s case. In 2015 Pope Francis invited delegations from Protestant and Hussite Churches to commemorate the 600th anniversary of Hus’s death and to begin an ecumenical celebration of reconciliation which then continued in many Churches throughout the country. My aim now will not be to track this shift in evaluating Hus, something I have done previously7. Here I will rather turn my attention to the emphasis on conversion as a way of responding to crisis. First, I will sketch the crisis Hus was facing at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, then spell out what conversion, metanoia, a change of heart and of one’s life practices, meant for him. In the conclusion I will ask what we, facing a different crisis of the Church and of society, can learn from Hus. I. THE CRISIS OF FOURTEENTH-CENTURY EUROPE When we speak about the crisis endangering the Church and society in fourteenth-century Europe, we need to take on board not only the realm of ideas, but also the social realities of that period. And when looking at the key threats, we need to remember that at that time the Black Death had wiped out 30 to 60 percent of the European population8. The experience was of unprecedented catastrophe: in town and country people died more quickly than they could be buried; nobody knew the cause of the sickness or how to prevent it, nor where it would strike next, nor whether they or their family would be victims. The randomness of who would live and die, a sense of the loss of order, loss of belief in the Church and in the goodness of God is well captured in Ingmar Bergman’s film, The Seventh Seal. The plague came to Central Europe in different waves, first in the mid-fourteenth century from the south, and then much more strongly in the 1380s, when tens of thousands of people died within a couple of years. While it may not have been as bad as in some other European countries, the atmosphere of fear and of helplessness had a significant impact on how people perceived and conducted their religious life. The 7. See I. NOBLE, Jan Hus in Ecumenical Discussion, in Journal of European Baptist Studies 6/2 (2006) 5-19 and The Ecumenical Re-evaluation of the Heritage of Jan Hus in the Czech Churches, in Lutheran Forum 49/4 (2015) 45-48. 8. See O.J. BENEDICTOW, The Black Death, 1346-1353: The Complete History, Rochester, NY, Boydell & Brewer, 2004; The Black Death: The Greatest Catastrophe Ever, in http://www.historytoday.com/ole-j-benedictow/ black-death-greatest-catastrophe-ever (downloaded 8/2/2015).

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reactions varied. Some blamed the Jews, the usual unfortunate target; others gave way to lethargy and a passive acceptance that the Black Death was the coming judgment of God, which no one had the power to change; others ended up losing faith not only in the power of doctors but also in the power of the Church, the current state of which was seen as part of the reasons for God’s wrath. Finally, others began to practice various forms of self-denunciation and self-punishment for their sins, in order to restore divine mercy9. There were reasons for despising Church authority. In 1302 obedience to the Pope as a necessary condition for one’s salvation was proclaimed10, and in 1378 a papal schism started which lasted forty years11. Moreover, apart from the disgust towards these wars, and towards implicating God, God’s salvation or God’s will in their justification, there were disillusioned soldiers returning from the crusades12. Besides the disillusion, they faced the practical problem of what to do with their lives. Men who had earned their living by fighting had lost any sense of how to live in peace, to work, to settle down with a family. Prostitution flourished, as did robbery and gambling. The crisis which St. Francis of Assisi had already spoken of more than a century earlier deepened, and in nominally

9. See M. FÖRSTL, Mor černá smrt: Dřímající ohniska nemoci, in Vesmír 87/392 (2008/6); J. SVOBODA, Historie morových epidemií, in Vesmír 74/496 (1995/9); L. FIALOVÁ, Dějiny obyvatelstva českých zemí, Prague, Mladá fronta, 1996, pp. 60-65. 10. This was claimed by Pope Boniface VIII in his bull Unam sanctam. It says: “Porro subesse Romano Pontifici omni humanae creaturae declaramus, dicimus, diffinimus omnino esse de necessitate salutis”. DS 875. 11. In 1378 a split in the papacy took place. Urban VI of Rome and Clement VII of Avignon pronounced anathemas on each other and brought Christians into war against each other. The synod of Pisa called in 1409 to resolve the situation made it even worse. While the two sitting popes, Gregory XII and Benedict XIII, were suspended, a new one, Alexander V, was elected. Thus there were three popes demanding obedience and taxes. In Bohemia supporters of the different sides were largely divided on national lines. The Czech clergy, university Masters and the King accepted the Council of Pisa and supported Alexander. The Archbishop, the higher clergy and the German Masters stood behind Gregory. The King, however forced the Archbishop to change his allegiance. When Alexander was succeeded by John XXIII, later known for his criminal actions, including piracy, sellers of indulgences appeared in Prague collecting money for a crusade against King Ladislas of Naples, who defended Pope Gregory. The Bohemian reform movement, however, opposed the sale of indulgences for the war, and thus potential for further conflicts cumulated. See F.M. BARTOŠ, Čechy v době Husově 1378-1415, Prague, Laichter, 1947. 12. The concept of crusades was first limited to the eight major attempts at military siege of the Holy Land from the hands of Muslims spread between 1096 and 1291. The concept was then used more broadly for other wars initiated by popes and claiming religious justification. For more detail, see C. TYERMAN, Crusades: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006.

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Christian Europe, as Thomas of Celano says, many “showed nothing of the Christian religion in their lives or character, and merely shelter behind the name of Christianity”13. II. JAN HUS AS A THEOLOGIAN AND AS A CHURCHMEN14 Jan Hus was born round 1370, though the exact date is not known. Thus, he would have been about ten years old when the second and more serious wave of plague came to South Bohemia, where his family lived. We have very little information about his childhood. We know only that his parents were poor, and that a decision for priesthood meant for Hus the only access to education and a better position in society. Round 1390 he enrolled at the University in Prague and four years later he gained his Master of Arts and started teaching. He was ordained in 1400. In the first decade of the fifteenth century his career developed very rapidly. First he became dean of the Philosophy Faculty. In this period he also became a preacher at Bethlehem Chapel, a centre of the reform movement of that time15. He was also invited to preach at synods. His position was firm as long as he kept a good relationship with the hierarchy and his critique of the crisis in the Church was presented within the educated ecclesial circles16. He was initially also under the protection of both the Archbishop and the King. Hus studied the writings of the English reformer, John Wycliffe (c. 13291384), which were brought to Prague by Master Hieronymus in 140117. Wycliffe attracted Hus because of his philosophical realism, which 13. THOMAS OF CELANO, The First Life of Saint Francis (n. 1), I.i.1, p. 8. 14. On the life and work of Jan Hus, see V. NOVOTNÝ, M. Jan Hus: Život a učení I-II, Prague, Laichter, 1919, 1921; F. ŠMAHEL, Jan Hus, Prague, Argo, 2013; O. PAVLÍČEK, The Chronology of the Life and Work of Jan Hus, in F. ŠMAHEL (ed.), A Companion to Jan Hus, Leiden, Brill, 2015, 9-68; D. COUFAL, Die Person Jan Hus, in Communio Viatorum 57 (2015) 4-18. 15. The Bethlehem Chapel was founded in 1391 by pupils of Jan Milíč of Kroměříž to support preaching in Czech that would make the Word of God accessible to a broad audience. It was large, able to accommodate some 3000 people, and it quickly became the centre of the reform movement in Bohemia. From 1402 Hus was in charge of the chapel. See M. SPINKA, John Hus: A Biography, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1968, p. 47. 16. This was strengthened by the fact that the later Archbishop, Zbyněk, was, as a young nobleman (Zbyněk Zajíc of Hazmburk), mentored by Hus. And after assuming the archbishopric of Prague, he was a supporter of the reform movement. 17. Wycliffe represented the second wave of anti-nominalist thought, reacting against Ockham and Scotus and against their scepticism about the employment of the direct transcendent authority of God in the life of a Christian.

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helped him to claim that abstract nouns like truth or justice are not just made through the agreement of those who employ them, but refer beyond themselves, to the realm of their absolute value, theologically speaking to God. And thus God was seen also as the supreme judge of what is and what is not true, who is and who is not just, something which the Church in crisis, Hus thought, needed to recover the most. At Prague University the appropriation of Wycliffe strengthened already existing controversies between the Czech and German Masters. This controversy had three facets. Politically, there was a struggle between, in today’s terms, Czech and German national identities; philosophically, there was a clash of convictions regarding the status of universal concepts, the German Masters on the whole preferred Ockham’s nominalism, while the Czech Masters opted for realism. And finally, the philosophical convictions underpinned how each side envisaged a way out of the crisis of the Church. The nominalist German Masters preferred the consensual solution. The Council, according to them, should be granted a supreme authority, given that the unity of the Church had been broken by the papal schism. The Czech Masters, from their realist perspective, opted for resolving the crisis by the conversion of all the Church, including its main and necessary symbol of unity, the Pope. Wycliffe’s realist philosophy impacted on Hus’s theology of reform. It gave him a language to speak about what we may call a de-secularising of the Church, making it “really” believe in God, “really” follow Christ, so that it would be visible, tangible in its practices. Like Wycliffe18, the Czech Masters criticised primarily those in the Church who had power and wealth, the main attributes and means of the secular: the higher clergy, rich monks, bishops whose main interest was in their lands, the popes who were in fact acting like the opposite of shepherds, as “antipopes”, bringing division because of their worldly ambitions and leading Christians to war19. While Hus was not an uncritical follower of Wycliffe – for example, he accepted neither the idea of radical predestination nor Wycliffe’s sacramental theology20 – he felt attracted to the idea of 18. Already Wycliffe’s early work, The Last Age of the Church (1356) reflects the crisis. Here Wycliffe sees it through the prism of the experience of the plague epidemic that had attacked England a few years earlier. His De ecclesia (1378) coincided with the papal schism, and his critique of the institution of the Church is much more addressed to what he saw as an abuse of authority. 19. King Ladislas of Naples tried to prevent the Council of Pisa by military means. His army occupied Rome in 1408, and then again in 1413 when John XXIII who crowned Louis as a rival King of Naples, received support for war from the newly elected German King Sigismund. Bohemia was one of the playgrounds of these conflicts. See n. 12. 20. Wycliffe criticised the doctrine of transubstantiation, and replaced it with teaching on remanence. See De Eucharistia (1379). Hus, on the other hand, defended transubstan-

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placing the Church and all Christians under the judgment of the Holy Scriptures, made accessible to all, as well as to the Augustinian distinction between the visible and the invisible Church, and in particular to the Christocentricity of Wycliffe’s ecclesiology. Hus upheld a moderate form of realism, which grounded his conviction that obedience to Church authority is qualified by whether that authority is obedient to Christ as testified by the Scriptures and Holy Tradition. He was also influenced by his predecessors, Conrad Waldhauser and Jan Milíč of Kroměříž, who understood ecclesiastical reform in terms of the moral – and hence also spiritual – conversion of all its members21. Hus in this first period wrote mainly in Latin, for an educated audience, which sought Church reform “from above”. But his experience in the Bethlehem Chapel brought him closer to a broader Czech audience. In his sermons he helped lay people to form their own judgement based in the Scriptures, and educated them in the foundations of Christian faith22. This audience became decisive in Hus’s later development.

tiation. As Alexander Kolesnyk has pointed out, Hus addressed the teaching on the Eucharist in several of his works. First, in De sanguine Christi (1406; in Sebrané spisy latinské II, Prague, Bursík, 1904, 243-266), where he criticized the desire for miracles and defended the veneration of the whole of Christ in the Eucharist; then in De Corpore Christi (1408; in Sebrané spisy latinské I, Prague, Bursík, 1904, 247-261), where he uses the teaching on transubstantiation as a defence against superstitions. A similar position is found in Hus’s commentary on Peter Lombard’s Super Quattuor Sententiarum (Mistra Jana Husi sebrané spisy III. Spisy latinské III, Prague, Vilímek, 1904) and in his Postila adumbrate (1412; Magistri Iohannis Hus Opera Omnia XIII, Prague, Academia, 1975). See A. KOLESNYK, Husovo pojetí eucharistie, in J.B. LÁŠEK (ed.), Jan Hus mezi epochami, národy a konfesemi, Prague, Česká křesťanská akademie and HTF UK, 1995, 118-125. For ongoing conversation on the subject, see also E. WERNER, Das Altarsakrament im Religionverständnis von Jan Hus, in J. PÁNEK – M. POLÍVKA – N. REJCHRTOVÁ (eds.), Sborník k 60: Narozeninám Františka Šmahela, Prague, Historický ústav, 1994, 317-329; S. SOUSEDÍK, Učení o eucharistii v díle M. Jana Husa, Prague, Vyšehrad, 1998; C.V. POSPÍŠIL, Jan Hus a transsubstanciace z hlediska dogmatické teologie, in AUC Theologica 5/1 (2015) 9-40. 21. Conrad Waldhauser was invited by Archbishop Arnošt to come to preach in Prague in 1363. His sermons, as well as influencing his followers (among others Jan Milíč of Kroměříž and Matěj of Janov) initiated reform in Bohemian Christianity. In Hus’s time the Masters of the Prague University also took part in public preaching. See NOVOTNÝ, M. Jan Hus: Život a učení (n. 14), I: Život a dílo, pp. 41-47; D. DUKA Předchůdci Mistra Jana Husa (Konrád Waldhauser, Jan Milíč z Kroměříže, Matěj z Janova), in LÁŠEK (ed.), Jan Hus mezi epochami, národy a konfesemi (n. 20), 51-53. 22. The lay education took as its main themes sermons on the Decalogue, on Our Father and on Creed. See S. BYLINA, La catéchisation du peuple en Bohème aux XIVe et XVe siècles, in Z.V. DAVID – D.R. HOLETON (eds.), The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice, vol. 3, Prague, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Main Library, 2000, 25-33.

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Starting in 1409 Hus began to have problems. Shortly after being elected rector of the University he had to put into practice the Decree of Kutná Hora, by which the King, Václav IV, gave a majority of votes at the University to the Czech Masters. This caused the German Masters to leave and to start their own University in Leipzig, and aroused the anger of Archbishop Zbyněk23. The King’s decree, executed by Hus, led the Archbishop to burn Wycliffe’s writings publicly and to forbid preaching in the vernacular, which affected the Bethlehem Chapel. Hus protested and thus came into direct conflict with the Archbishop24. When the sellers of indulgences appeared in Prague, collecting money for the war between John XXIII and the King of Naples, Hus was at the centre of organizing a protest. Archbishop Zbyněk placed Hus under an anathema, which was reinforced with an interdict. As long as Hus remained in Prague, the Archbishop forbade the administration of any sacraments in the city. Hus, aware of the impact this would have on the people who believed that there is no salvation without sacramental mediation, decided to leave. This event is behind Hus’s famous appeal to Christ: “I commit this my appeal to Jesus Christ, the most just judge, who reliably knows, defends and judges, makes visible and rewards the equitable cause of every man”25. Hus claims here that Christ’s judgment concerns the ultimate reality, which, according to Hus the realist, belongs to God alone and if the decisions of Church authorities are unjust, Christ’s judgment negates them. Of course, we are dealing here with the extreme situation, and one can legitimately object that someone who is mad or wicked can claim the same unmediated authority of Christ as

23. The Archbishop’s attitude towards the Bohemian reform movement had weakened already due to the controversy over Wycliffe, in which he stood on the side of the German University Masters, who considered him heretical. In 1403 a German Master Johann Hübner wrote 45 articles against Wycliffe, in which he claimed that his teaching was heretical. Hus did not agree with this critique. At the same time, however, Hus did not belong to the radical wing of Wycliffe’s uncritical supporters, such as his own teacher, Stanislav of Znojmo, or his colleague Štěpán Páleč. Both of these were summoned to Rome in 1407, and at the demand of Archbishop Zbyněk had to defend themselves before the curia against the accusation of heresy. After their return they became the most zealous opponents of Wycliffe and of Hus. See I. DOLEJŠOVÁ (NOBLE), Hus a Páleč (realismus versus nominalismus), in LÁŠEK (ed.), Jan Hus mezi epochami, národy a konfesemi (n. 20), 84-85. 24. See J. HUS, Obrana článků Viklefových, in Sebrané spisy latinské II (n. 20), 267-332. 25. See F. DOBIÁŠ – A. MOLNÁR (eds.), Husova výzbroj do Kostnice, Prague, Kalich, 1965, pp. 30 and 32.

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a saint does. Hus is aware of this. Moreover, the appeal to the highest authority of Christ does not mean for him that he knows the mind of Christ, or even that he can project onto Christ what Christ will decide in the final judgement. This would contradict the very belief in the supremacy of the divine authority. At the same time, Hus returned again and again to the problem of criteria for a recognisably Christian life in the years 1412 to 1414 when he preached in the country, living with his friends at Kozí Hrádek, Krakovec and other places, and also in his Czech writings from this period26. His vision of the reform of the Church is described in his Latin work, De Ecclesia, heavily inspired by Wycliffe. The realist philosophy is embodied in his theology, but he needed to complement that by criteria for discernment between what is and what is not of God. Thus he more explicitly referred to the witness of the Bible and of the Church fathers in which criteria are given to discern what it means for the Church and for each Christian to be faithful to God. Due to his preaching and his writing Hus’s popularity grew. Crowds of people followed Hus to hear him in the country and the reform movement grew in numbers. Thus in 1414 he was invited to the Council of Constance, which was to renew order in the Church. The promises of safe passage, as well as of a public hearing there, were broken. He was imprisoned after his arrival. Accused of heresy he was refused the possibility of a public defence. He was found guilty, and on 6 July 1415 burnt as a heretic27. The violent action of the Council fathers provoked a strong reaction in Bohemia, and following crusades to suppress it, led to the Hussite Wars28, in which violence happened on both sides.

26. These include Homilies, Exposition of Faith, of the Decalogue and of the Our Father, Books on Simony, published in Opera Omnia I and IV, Prague, Academia, 1975 and 1985. 27. There are documents that show that whatever Hus had said or accepted at the Council, the plan was to liquidate him. See J. KEJŘ, Husův process, Prague, Vyšehrad, 2000; T.A. FUDGE, The Trial of Jan Hus: Medieval Heresy and Criminal Procedure, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013. 28. There was a disagreement regarding the use of violence in defence. Under the influence of Petr Chelčický (c. 1390 – c. 1460) a pacifist group was gradually formed and left the movement. The Unitas fratrum (also known as the Moravian Brotherhood) was founded in 1457, a Church which would later become known through its last bishop, expelled from the country, Jan Amos Comenius (1590-1670), and which re-emerged in a different form (as Moravian Brethren) in Herrnhut at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

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III. THE PERSONAL AND THE COLLECTIVE DIMENSIONS OF CONVERSION Now let use turn in more detail to the voice that was silenced at Constance, and explore what Hus had to say to the reform of the Church by means of conversion of all its members29. Bernard Lonergan speaks of conversion as of “a matter of moving from one set of roots to another”30. Such a shift might involve a turning completely round or an expansion of the latent possibilities present in the pre-conversion life. For Lonergan conversion takes place “only inasmuch as a man [or woman] discovers what is inauthentic in himself [herself] and turns away from it, inasmuch as he [she] discovers what the fullness of human authenticity can be and embraces it with his [her] whole being”31. Conversion is thus seen primarily as a matter of individual attitude. In Hus we find an interaction between the personal and the collective dimensions of conversion. This interaction is central to his attempt at a recovery of a Christian spirit of the Church. Hus envisages conversion against the notion of heresy. The frequent accusations of heresy in Hus’s time led him to reflect on what heresy was and what it did to the Church. Already in his synodal sermon in 1407, he had emphasized that the following of Christ cannot be reduced to doctrine but has its practical side, too, keeping the commandments. Not to keep the commandments and not to resemble Christ in one’s morals leads to a false Christianity: A false Christian rejects the commandment of the Apostle, and having received the name of Christ he takes on himself weapons of the devil and leads the fight of the Antichrist; he confesses that he knows God, but rejects God in his actions; he is a false Christ and a true Antichrist; and there is not just one, but many of them32.

29. I partly draw here on two earlier articles. See I. DOLEJŠOVÁ (NOBLE), Eschatological Elements in Jan Hus’s Ecclesiology and Their Implications for a Later Development of the Church in Bohemia, in J. BROSSEDER (ed.), Verborgener Gott – verborgene Kirche? Die kenotische Theologie und ihre ekklesiologischen Implikationen (Forum Systematik, 14), Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, 2001, 138-155; I. NOBLE, Eschatological Elements in Hus’s Understanding of Orthopraxis, in Z.V. DAVID – D.R. HOLETON (eds.), The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice, vol. 4, Prague, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Main Library, 2002, 127-141. 30. B. LONERGAN, Method in Theology, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1972, p. 271. 31. Ibid. 32. J. HUS, Kázání 1407, in Sebrané spisy latinské I (n. 20), p. 162.

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The one who thus sins and denies God is to be considered a heretic33. This theme is developed in Hus’s Czech writings, in On Six Heresies in particular. Here Hus analyses what he sees as the heresies of the clergy of his time, which consist in claiming a higher authority than that of God34 and treating things of God given for salvation as a material possession35. In each instance Hus emphasizes the role of conscience and the personal responsibility of each Christian, as well as the role of solidarity. The healthy state of the Church is at stake. Hus did not doubt that the Church of God was a reality that was present before his time and would be present after his time, but the visible Church needs to be reconciled and re-rooted to its invisible origins and sources of life. Otherwise it would be a deviation against Christ. Hus opens his tract De ecclesia by saying that “every Christian here in the world is to believe faithfully the holy and Catholic Church”36. But immediately after that he explains the source of this belief, namely “loving the Lord Jesus Christ, the bridegroom of this Church”37. The Church can be perceived in faith as a home, as a house that “is built to serve the Lord”38. The Church as we experience her here and now is ecclesia permixta, where the good and the ill grow together until the harvest39. The Church of God is not the gathering of all people, not even of all the baptised, according to Hus. Within the Church institution opposite qualities can be found. And Hus uses for them a polarised typology, those of Christ and those of the anti-Christ, and we could also say, of faith and anti-faith, of orthodoxy and orthopraxis, as well as heresy.

33. See ibid., p. 169. 34. Hus links this heresy to the magical understanding of the power of priests and bishops in sacraments in a number of ways. For example, when they think that they can be “creators of their Creator” (O šesti bludiech 1) or when they assume that their power to forgive or retain sin is independent of God (O šesti bludiech 3). Again he refers to situations when they require indiscriminate obedience, whether what is asked leads to the glory of God and salvation of humankind or not (O šesti bludiech 4), or when they claim that their punishments, such as interdicts or excommunication, are heard in heaven and that God has to respect them, whether they are justly or unjustly given (O šesti bludiech 5). And he also criticises them for thinking that it is possible to trade the gifts of the Spirit (O šesti bludiech 6). See J. HUS, O šesti bludiech, in Drobné spisy české – Opera omnia IV (n. 26), 271-296. 35. This is the final heresy that Hus criticizes. See O šesti bludiech 6 (n. 34), pp. 288296. He speaks indirectly, but it is clear that he addresses the recent incident of the sale of indulgences in order to support the war of John XXIII against the King of Naples. 36. J. HUS, Tractatus de ecclesia, Prague, Komenského evangelická fakulta bohoslovecká, 1958, p. 1. 37. Ibid. 38. See ibid., pp. 1, 4, 6. 39. Ibid., p. 11.

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If Hus fully accepted Wycliffe’s radical teaching on predestination, no reform would be possible, only critique. And yet in his writings we find much attention to how one can move from being a goat to being a sheep, how a sinner can become a child of God, and also how the whore of Babylon can become the virgin of Jerusalem. It is when he moves from the Lex Christi, the law of Christ, to the vita Christi, the life of Christ40, that we can see most clearly a different facet of conversion, and his earlier typology becomes less schematic. Following the life of Christ means kenosis, giving oneself up for the sake of others. The faithfulness of Christ brought life to others. To those who denied him, to his persecutors, it was the source of their conversion. It brought those who were far near. It brought reconciliation. Again, though not mechanically, nor without personal change of heart, this very possibility of conversion expanded the understanding of grace and made it dynamic rather than given once and for all or not given at all. Hus opens the Speech on Peace, which he composed as an intended defence before the Council of Constance, by saying that Christ is the peace of the Church41. He offered himself as an exchange for others, and this became the foundation of the Church. The conversion of the Church institution is a conversion to this very exchange. Hus, quoting John 21,15-17, claims that the succession of Peter rests on love. Lack of love is destructive for the Church42. De-secularisation of the Church, in Hus’s words, means bringing it back to the peace of Christ and to the very source of its existence, to the self-giving love of its Master that calls for imitation. The critique of the current state of the Church is still there. Hus cannot be silent towards the sins and heresies of the shepherds of the Church of his day, because they lead “to cutting the Church back, to an increased chaos, to alienating the peace and in result to losing souls”43. Hus places himself among those who feel responsible for the state of the 40. Defending Wycliffe, he wrote that Wycliffe in all his writings passionately tried to bring people back to the “lex Christi” and especially clergy, who were to put aside their “pomposa domination” and as apostles follow “vita Christi”. See J. HUS, Contra Johannem Stokes, cited in B. TÖPFER, Lex Christi, dominium a církevní hierarchie u Jana Husa ve srovnání s pojetím u Jana Viklefa, in LÁŠEK (ed.), Jan Hus mezi epochami, národy a konfesemi (n. 20), 96-103, pp. 99-100; see also A. MOLNÁR, Na rozhraní věků, Prague, Vyšehrad, 1985, p. 19. 41. Hus says that Christ as “a perfect Redeemer and Saviour of the world, as a true God and true man, a priest according to the order of Melchisedech … after his most grave death when he victoriously rose from the death, as a victor over the death offered to his disciples peace, saying: ‘Peace to you’”. J. HUS, Sermo de pace / Řeč o míru, Prague, Kalich, 1963, p. 27. 42. Ibid., p. 57. 43. Ibid., p. 77.

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Church, in the sense that a response is required which would make them worthy of peace, as he reads in Matt 10,13: “If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you”44. He concludes the homily by the call to collective and yet personal conversion, addressed to the clerics at the Council: Let us who bear the priestly office humble our souls before the Lord who is most kind, and in the constriction of the spirit with all devotedness cry: All kind and powerful Lord, let peace in your strength come. Peace to this house … and the persecuting enemy moved far, peace to this house and the godless schism banished, and peace to this house in the glory of God the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, blessed for ages and ages. Amen45.

IV. CONCLUSION: THE HERITAGE OF HUS TODAY The celebrations of the 600th anniversary of Hus’s death in 2015 brought back the challenge that Cardinal Josef Beran had expressed during the Second Vatican Council. How can the “hidden wound in the hearts of the people”46 who remember the cause of Jan Hus be healed, so that it does not produce animosity towards religious institutions, ideological reductions of others to someone dangerous and/or inferior, convictions that religion and freedom are contradictions in terms? The celebrations were an occasion not only to return to the detail of Hus’s life and work, but also to that of the different memories of Hus and their impact. These memories were not restricted to Churches, whether those which laid claim to Hus, or in the Church to which he belonged and which rejected him at the end of his earthly life. There were also social and political memories of Hus which impacted upon a relationship to religion in Bohemia. They included a picture of Hus not only as a reformer of the Church, but also as a fighter for the truth, and a defender of the marginalized. Who the “marginalized” were differed. Sometimes it was Protestant groups in a Catholic state; sometimes Czechs as a suppressed nation during the Austrian and later Austro-Hungarian Empire; sometimes the working-class before and after the Communists took over the country. Within the Churches there were still different memories to reflect upon, namely those of the awkward position that 44. See ibid., p. 27. 45. Ibid., p. 77. 46. See the full text of the speech from 20 September 1965 in English translation on https://vaticaniiat50. wordpress.com/2015/09/20/text-of-prague-cardinals-speech-onreligious-liberty/ (accessed 1/6/2017).

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Cardinal Beran referred to. The fact that the Churches were confronted by the ideologies directed against them by the secularist state reminded them of the ideologies they themselves fabricated. And a profound ideology critique could not address only the secularist ideologies without touching the ecclesial ones. Such ideology critique was present throughout the process aiming at rehabilitation of Jan Hus theologically and canonically, something I have addressed in different studies47. Here I would want to look at how the reconciliation which such a critique aimed at was celebrated liturgically in 2015, and what its impact was for Churches that live today at the boundary of reform and reformation. On June 15, 2015, when Pope Francis received a delegation of leaders from the Roman Catholic Church in the Czech Republic, the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, and the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, these being the three largest Churches in the country associated with the heritage of Jan Hus, a liturgy of reconciliation was celebrated. Before that, during the audience, other important things happened as a pre-text to the celebration. An exchange of gifts took place. Pope Francis received different artistic artifacts with the image of Jan Hus, and all of the delegates received a copy of the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium in their mother tongue. Already this exchange of the gifts signified that a different attitude than that of animosity or indifference has taken place in all involved. Then there was an exchange at the conceptual level. Pope Francis emphasized the need to continue to study the person and activity of Jan Hus and to carry it out “without conditioning of an ideological type … [in] service to the historical truth”. This, according to him, would be beneficial for all Christians, for Czech society but also beyond the boundaries of the nation. It might help in removing obstacles for a “new evangelization, of so many men and women that seem indifferent to the joyful news of the Gospel”. And the “renewal of every ecclesial structure, in order to foster the positive response from all those to whom Jesus offers his friendship”, requires, according to him, such a continuous conversion, enabling moving forward “together on the path of reconciliation and peace”. Pope Francis spoke of his earnest desire to move towards relationships of real brotherhood: “Along this path we learn, by the grace of God, to recognize one another as friends and to consider 47. See NOBLE, Jan Hus in Ecumenical Discussion (n. 7); The Ecumenical Re-evaluation of the Heritage of Jan Hus in the Czech Churches (n. 7). I draw here partly on this second text.

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others’ motivations in the best possible light”. He supported the development of the bond of friendship at the level of local communities, assured the delegates and their Churches of his prayers, and asked them to pray for him and his ministry48. This led at least some of the local Czech Protestant communities including a prayer for this pope in their regular Sunday services. A liturgy of reconciliation followed the papal audience in Rome and a similar service was held at the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague where Hus used to preach. A few days later, on June 20, many Czech congregations celebrated the liturgy as well. June 20 was the day Hus refused to retract the articles falsely attributed to him by the Council fathers. Representatives of all three divided Churches took part in the penitential prayers, acknowledging that they could not seek a genuine unity without accepting a share of responsibility for what had broken unity over the centuries. These celebrations are a good example of treating memories in the complex way that they require. Memories do things to people. They do not live only behind us, they also come to meet us from ahead, opening or closing doors to possible futures. This is why reconciliation is never only a matter of justice towards past figures and situation, but also a justice towards the living – those living in the realm of God, and those living here, both after and in front of them, as their ancestors. In this sense, the commemorations of the heritage of Jan Hus brought back into circulation some of his desires which could not be realized in his time. First, Hus believed in the Church as a necessary consequence of believing in Christ. The Church he believed in was beautiful and loving, despite the crisis it underwent in his time. But at the same time the Church was not merely reduced to a dream-world of ideas. It was tangible through those who followed Christ, who struggled to keep his law and to imitate his life. Their personal conversion made at the same time the graced space tangible for others. While Hus saw the Church as a mixed body, made of those who follow Christ and those who oppose him, and while he expected the full victory 48. See “Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to a Delegation from the Czech Republic on the Occasion of the 600th Anniversary of the Death of Jan Hus” (Monday, 15 June 2015), in http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/ en/speeches/2015/june/documents/papa-francesco_20150615_anniversario-jan-hus.html (accessed 5/9/2015); for reports on the audience, see M.T. ZIKMUND, Papež přijal Čechy. Díky Husovi, in Katolický týdeník 25 (2015) 16; D. ŽENATÝ, Zástupci českých církví u papeže Františka, in Český bratr 7-8 (2015), http://www.ceskybratr.cz/ archives/8723#more-8723 (accessed 5/9/2015); H. TONZAROVÁ, Přijetí papežem Františkem, in Český zápas 95/27 (2015), http://www.ccsh.cz/dokumenty/2317-cz27proweb.pdf (accessed 5/9/2015).

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of Christ not only in the world but also in the Church eschatological, he did not opt either for individualist piety or for exclusivist groupings. This would be a contradiction to Christ, who in love came for all and desires to be Lord of all. The Church is wounded, and as Hus pointed out, in our history it has always been wounded, because of the killing of the martyrs (he does not glorify suffering), because of the impact of the heretics or because of the evil ways of its own members49. But there was at the same time always aid from God, taking the Church out of the miseries into which it fell50. The victory of Christ, however, takes place only when people in their free will seek and receive reconciliation51. There is nothing mechanical about it. Mechanistic conceptions lead to false religious identities that distort and disrupt both the Church and society. We could say that Hus followed in the line of St. Francis of Assisi and other Christian saints who clearly distinguished between Christendom and a Christian religion shaping people’s lives and character 52. This distinction is still valid as we witness the rise of religiously underpinned nationalism and xenophobia in Europe. To follow Christ means also to befriend the fact that Christ came for all, calling us to be people for all. In Hus’s case it is very clear that it does not follow that everything is acceptable. On the contrary. The very generosity of Christ needs to be defended in the Church and by the Church. Otherwise the Church loses its succession, which rests on love53. Charles University Ecumenical Institute PTF UK Černá 9 115 55 Praha 1 Czech Republic [email protected]

Ivana NOBLE

49. See HUS, Sermo de pace /Řeč o míru (n. 41), p. 47. 50. In the String of Three Strands Hus sketched how faith, hope and love take a Christian “out of the futility of the world, the misery of sin, and the cruelty of the devil”, from “eternal damnation to eternal beatitude”, thanks to the “Lord Jesus, our dear Saviour” with “the help of his Mother, pure Virgin, and all the saints”. J. HUS, Provázek třípramenný, in Opera Omnia IV (n. 26), 147-162, pp. 161-162. In the Exposition on Faith it is Christ as “the truth will release you from sin, from the devil, from the death of the soul, and at the end from the eternal death, that is the eternal separation from the grace of God”. J. HUS, Výklad na vieru, in ID., Výklady – Opera Omnia I (n. 26), 63-112, p. 69. 51. See HUS, Sermo de pace / Řeč o míru (n. 41), pp. 39-41. 52. See THOMAS OF CELANO, The First Life of Saint Francis (n. 1), I.i.1, p. 8. 53. HUS, Sermo de pace / Řeč o míru (n. 41), p. 57.

RECEPTIVE ECUMENISM INITIATIVE, METHOD, IDENTITY, FLEXIBILITY

Receptive Ecumenism (RE) is a twenty-first century initiative in the modern ecumenical movement1. This inquiry takes a cue from both LEST XI’s fifth centenary commemoration of the start of the Reformation and the Fourth International Conference on Receptive Ecumenism, especially a plenary presentation by P.D. Murray, the main architect and exponent of RE2. What is the identity of RE, including its method and underlying theology, and how does RE differ from ecumenical dialogue? Does it compete with dialogue for ecumenical leverage? Section One establishes that RE is a contemporary initiative in ecumenism. Section Two looks into whether or not RE possesses enough internal consistency to be a distinct, theologically-grounded path or method. If so, wonders Section Three, does RE express a distinctive systematic-theological orientation? Section Four, on the basis of Sections One to Three, explores a major Lutheran proposal, Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in Peril in reference to RE3. Sections Two, Three and Four hope to contribute to RE being understood as “necessarily theological in orientation”, rather than an umbrella for everything and anything remotely like reception4. The Conclusion asks if it is not in ecumenism’s best interests to allow for a positive, ongoing but unsystematized correlation between RE as potentially the interim primary method and ecumenical dialogue as secondary until renewed by RE in a future more attuned to the global South.

1. For overviews of ecumenism today see S.K. WOOD, The Shifting Ecumenical Landscape at the 2017 Reformation Centenary, in Theological Studies 78 (2017) 573-595, and T. RAUSCH, A New Ecumenism? Christian Unity in a Global Church, ibid., 596-613. 2. P.D. MURRAY, Discerning the Call of the Spirit to Theological-Ecclesial Renewal: On Being Reasonable and Responsible in the Way of Receptive Ecumenical Learning, plenary at Leaning into the Spirit: The Fourth International Conference on Receptive Ecumenism – Discernment, Decision-Making, and Reception, Canberra, Australia, November 6-9, 2017. 3. L.E. DAHILL – J.B. MARTIN-SCHRAMM (eds.), Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in Peril [Eco-Reformation], Eugene, OR, Cascade Books, 2016. 4. P.D. MURRAY, Receptive Ecumenism as an Instrument of Theological-Ecclesial Renewal, in Leaning into the Spirit (n. 2), printed hand-out, n. 1.

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I. INITIATIVE Receptive Ecumenism began as a research project among some theologians in Europe, North America, and Australia5. Then, at the 2006 University of Durham international colloquium it came onto the wider landscape. Murray edited and published the Durham papers, not exclusively Roman Catholic, as Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning: Exploring a Way for Contemporary Ecumenism6. Cardinal W. Kasper remarked in the Foreword that RE like ecumenical dialogue is an exchange of ideas understood as an exchange of gifts thankfully received, exemplifying the spiritual ecumenism in St John Paul II’s Ut unum sint7. Murray’s Preface set forth the central perspective8. RE changes the primary, operational question in ecumenism. The implied question in entering ecumenical dialogues asks, “What do our various others first need to learn from us if we are to get ecumenically serious and make any real progress”9? A caesura before that query provides a moment first to ask another question instead. “What can we learn or receive, with integrity from our various others in order to facilitate our own growth together into deepened communion in Christ and the Spirit”10. Phrased slightly differently, “what do we need to learn and what can we learn – or receive – with integrity from our [ecumenical] others”11? Admirable readiness to prepare our accounts of revelation, beliefs, worship, discipleship, mission, ecclesial structures and operations has been a valuable perspective in the preparations, processes, and results of ecumenical dialogues12. 5. For analysis and interpretation see A. PIZZEY, Heart and Soul: Receptive Ecumenism as a Dynamic Development of Spiritual Ecumenism, PhD Diss. Australian Catholic University, 2016, at http://researchbank.acu.edu.au/theses/568. I am encouraged to find convergence on RE as spiritual ecumenism, the centrality of humility, the role of the Holy Spirit, the decisive role of affectivity, and RE as a new ecumenical method. 6. P.D. MURRAY (ed.), Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning: Exploring a Way in Ecumenism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008. 7. See M. O’GARA, Receiving Gifts in Ecumenical Dialogue, in MURRAY (ed.), Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning (n. 6), 26-37; JOHN PAUL II, On Commitment to Ecumenism, Ut unum sint, http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ut-unum-sint.html. 8. P.D. MURRAY, Preface, in ID. (ed.), Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning (n. 6), ix-xv, pp. ix-x. 9. Ibid., p. ix. 10. Ibid., pp. ix/x. 11. P.D. MURRAY, Receptive Ecumenism and Ecclesial Learning: Receiving Gifts for Our Needs, in Louvain Studies 33 (2008) 30-45, p. 32. 12. For an overview that highlights progress but does not ignore difficulties see Cardinal W. KASPER, Harvesting the Fruits: Basic Aspects of Christian Faith in Ecumenical Dialogue, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2009.

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And yet in the background there is no gainsaying a certain disillusionment with prepossessing results from dialogues that have been shelved instead of enacted. For many the role of dialogues in re-shaping present partial divisions has become less perspicuous though seldom foresworn outright. T. Rausch observes that, “a discouraged Robert Jenson notes the failure of formal dialogue to produce any real progress”13. Rausch evidently appraises Jenson’s view as an over-statement since Rausch values already achieved dialogical agreements as grounds for further cooperation. But Rausch estimates that the ecumenical future will have to do more to involve the 80 percent of Christians, many of whom are evangelical and Pentecostal in the global South, unrepresented in ecumenism. Rausch is correct on both counts in my opinion but expectation of future results from dialogues depends, I suggest, on their renewal by RE. It was, however, not chagrin over the slight dent in the status quo made by dialogues that generated RE although a lull amounting to what has been called an ecumenical winter has opened space for something new. The starting-point and leading orientation of RE take their rise from a shift in the experience and concept of the church. The guiding question in RE invites church leaders, ecumenists, and believing members of any partially divided tradition to let go of standing before ecumenical others as primarily an ecclesia docens (teaching church). The alternative starting-point is accepting a humbler situation in sitting with others as an ecclesia discens (learning church). Ecumenical dialogue involves both perspectives but assigns priority to teaching. Altering the priority of the two perspectives entails no lack of theological respect for accomplishments under the auspices of, for example, the Faith and Order Commission, the Lutheran World Federation, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Joint Working Group and other national and local bi-lateral and multi-lateral forums. The new priority for learning and receiving simply touches a different nerve for a new kind of exchange in which emphasis falls on how a church may be blessed through what others are. A dramatic example is how much Catholics, Anglicans, and mainstream Protestant churches have benefitted from Pentecostal churches in the charismatic renewal movement. Charismatic renewal approximated RE avant la lettre. RE is universally Christian. True, the Durham colloquium joined Receptive Ecumenism with Catholic Learning. But the conference 13. RAUSCH, A New Ecumenism? (n. 1), p. 599, referring to R.W. JENSON, The Strange Future of ‘the Ecumenical Movement’, in The Living Church, January 19 (2014) at http:// www.livingchurch.org/strange-future-of-ecumenism.

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regarded RE as assimilable in and by any and all churches. The logic and intent of the key question about receiving from ecumenical others were conceived as pertinent to all churches. All could wonder how something they observed, learned, and received from other churches has stirred, enlightened, and enabled them to become better Christians, their church a more faithful witness. Six of 32 chapters in the Durham volume are by ecumenists from traditions other than Roman Catholic. Similarly, the main themes at the Second and Third International Conferences – ecclesial learning can take place in any church and in reference to any church’s actual context – bore out that universality14. Similarly, the Fourth International Receptive Ecumenism Conference focused on praxes of discernment, decision-making, and reception in all ecumenical churches. Particular emphasis fell on those actions in Lutheran, Catholic, and Anglican churches. Anglican/Catholic relations have incorporated RE. The May 2017 Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission [ARCIC] III meeting at Erfurt, Germany approved an agreed statement. The communiqué from Erfurt remarked that Walking Together on the Way: Learning to be Church – Local, Regional, Universal “employs the method of Receptive Ecumenism to examine the structures by which Catholics and Anglicans order and maintain communion at the local, regional and universal level”15. In another context Anglican Co-Chair Archbishop Sir D. Moxon spoke in an interview with P. Hitchen about the new kind of ecclesial and personal conversion envisioned by ARCIC III in which ecumenical others are recognized as mediators of gifts of grace that they first have received from God16. ARCIC III recognizes and sets in motion, the Archbishop went on to say, our need to be “converted by each other”, 14. The Second International Receptive Ecumenism Conference took place, January 2009, at Durham University under sponsorship of the Centre for Catholic Studies, at https://www.dur.ac.uk/theology.religion/ccs/projects/receptiveecumenism/projects/churchtogether/. The Third International Receptive Ecumenism Conference was held at Fairfield University in Connecticut, USA, June 2014, https://www.dur.ac.uk/theology.religion/ccs/ new/?id=21545&itemno=21545. See Rev. Dr. D. CHAPMAN’S Report on the Third International Receptive Ecumenism Conference, in the First Friday Letter of the World Methodist Council, http://firstfridayletter.worldmethodistcouncil.org/2014/07/report-on-thethird-international-receptive-ecumenism-conference/ and T. RYAN, Third International Receptive Ecumenism Conference: A Report, https://www.cte.org.uk/Publisher/File. aspx?id=176851. 15. ARCIC III, May 14-17, 2017 meeting, Communiqué from the Meeting of ARCIC III in Bildungshaus St Ursula, Erfurt, at http://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/305352/ communiqué-from-the-meeting-of-arcic-iii-in-erfurt-2017.pdf, p. 2. 16. P. HITCHEN in a Christian newspaper, Tampa, FL, summarized with a link to her Vatican Radio report, at http://www.myspiritfm.com/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=0& view=post&articleid=133637&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0.

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not hiding “our wounds, our limitations, our weaknesses in order to help each other to grow”17. Archbishop of Birmingham UK and Catholic Co-chair, B. Longley, confirmed that participants had adopted the “the lens of Receptive Ecumenism”18. So far, then, RE began as the interesting topic of an international research project, became the main theme of the 2006 Durham conference, and is now a new ecumenical initiative with institutional momentum in ARCIC III. Nonetheless, RE remains a project under development in its ecclesial, ecumenical, and theological implications and applications. Murray’s articles have continued to expound the theological-philosophical implications19. Most recently, his November 7, 2017 address at the Fourth International Receptive Ecumenism Conference amplified theological and philosophical implications in RE20. II. METHOD Dialogues have been a characteristic way of proceeding in the modern ecumenical movement21. No less and likewise within the horizon of ecumenical concern RE has emerged as an ecumenical method underwritten and informed by substantive theological content22. What is a method? B. Lonergan defines method in terms applicable to the humanities, sciences, and theology as, “a normative pattern of recurrent and related operations yielding cumulative and progressive results”23. Method in Lonergan’s sense is neither a technique nor a set of rules for exact repetition. It springs from, specifies, organizes, and enables success in the human search for understanding and truth by raising questions and seeking answers in a process from experience to understanding to judgment, and on to deliberation and decision. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. MURRAY, Receptive Ecumenism and Ecclesial Learning (n. 11), p. 32, P.D. MURRAY, Families of Receptive Theological Learning: Scriptural Reasoning, Comparative Theology, and Receptive Ecumenism, in Modern Theology 29 (2013) 76-92. Modern Theology, 29, 4 focused on Receptive Ecumenism. 20. MURRAY, Discerning the Call of the Spirit to Theological-Ecclesial Renewal (n. 2). 21. On dialogue see JOHN PAUL II, On Commitment to Ecumenism, Ut Unum Sint, §§ 28-39 and Reflections by Card. Walter Kasper: Nature and Purpose of Ecumenical Dialogue, at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/card-kasperdocs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_20030227_ecumenical-dialogue_en.html. 22. I wish to thank A. DENAUX at LEST XI for a question about RE and method in the discussion following my paper. 23. B. LONERGAN, Method in Theology, Toronto, University of Toronto Press for the Lonergan Research Institute, 2013.

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I will appeal to Lonergan’s concept of method. Potential misunderstanding of Lonergan presents an initial hazard. His precise yet generic idea of method for research lacks an explicit theological basis in the act and content of faith and so represents a philosophical moment in the realm of theology. And just that fact could lead to imagining ecumenical method, whether dialogue or RE as a general category into which revelation and faith are pushed24. That suspicion, however, would be to lose sight of the presence of revelation, faith, and arguably the continual influence of the Holy Spirit, in RE. Moreover, Sections Two and Three will make clear the influence of faith and theological content in the practice of RE. The normative pattern in RE conceived as a method is the initiating disposition of humility and the question about what is to be learned and received from ecumenical others25. The recurrent and related operations – activities in spiritual ecumenism, conversion, docility to the Holy Spirit in moving beyond ecclesial self-preoccupation – promise cumulative and progressive results, thereby fulfilling the idea of method. Admittedly the interior nature of the results makes them more difficult to gauge than are published outcomes from dialogues or the observable assemblies of the World Council of Churches. Nonetheless, RE is an ecumenical method because it comprises a communicable and theologically-infused starting-point, typical acts, and a foreknown but open-ended goal26. The concept of method has a philosophical cast but the method in actual performance flows from theology and pastoral practice. 1. Receptive A problem facing discussion of RE is the number of ecumenical meanings and practices called to peoples’ minds by the term “receptive”. Some manner of receptivity seems so diffuse and common a trait in relations among divided churches and their members that RE may seem

24. For a Lonerganian understanding of ecumenical dialogue and consensus with attention to the Group des Dombes on conversion see C.E. CLIFFORD, Lonergan’s Contribution to Ecumenism, in Theological Studies 63 (2002) 521-538; and for application of ideas from Lonergan to ecumenism as a whole see C.E. CLIFFORD, Ecumenical Dialogue, Conversion, and Ecclesial Self-Transcendence, in G. WHELAN (ed.), Lonergan’s Anthropology Revisited: The Next Fifty Years of Vatican II, Roma, Gregorian and Biblical Press, 2015, 305-318. K. FINCH presented “Lonergan’s Method as Scaffolding for Ecumenical Discernment” in a session at the Fourth International Receptive Ecumenism Conference in Canberra. 25. On humility see also PIZZEY, Heart and Soul (n. 5), Chapter Four. 26. On method as open-ended see B. LONERGAN, Method: Trends and Variations, in F.E. CROWE (ed.), A Third Collection: Papers by Bernard J.F. Lonergan, SJ, London, Geoffrey Chapman, 1985, 13-22, p. 13.

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to lack enough settled coherence to qualify as a normative pattern anywhere near the settled expectations and procedures operative in dialogues. What then is the distinctness, the identity, the originality of RE? Is it distinct enough from informal receptivity in ordinary friendships among people of varying Christian confessions and from conversations enveloping formal ecumenical dialogues at any level to warrant being considered a path, or a method in Lonergan’s sense? For instance, is RE prescriptive enough to guide recurrent and related operations toward the result that is movement toward Christian unity? Though a promising beginning is underway its long-term cumulative and progressive results admittedly cannot yet be in evidence. Lacking results comparable to the outcomes of official dialogues rules out RE’s fulfilling all elements in Lonergan’s idea of method. Wood states quite correctly about RE in ARCIC that, “Since the results are not yet available, it remains to be seen how useful the method [RE] is for official bi-lateral dialogues”27. The question of usefulness situates RE in the role of a means to the end, dialogue. This is a valid and important consideration. At the same time the distinctness of RE involves its being not only a means to dialogue. The means/end relation can be reversed. To pose a complementary question, how useful will dialogues be in evoking the Spirit-led ecclesial receptions and conversions that RE promotes? The as yet unknown results from RE do not prevent looking into whether or not RE in its initial historical phase is a method in the sense of a distinct, new normative pattern of recurrent and related operations for promoting Christian unity. What does Receptive mean? Attending to this hopefully is a Socratic not dictionary exercise. In Acts 15 Antiochian Christians rejoiced to receive the emissaries and letter from the Jerusalem church on the ways Gentile believers were to observe, or not, the law of Moses. In the history of the church full or partial reception by most of the church ensued from each of the seven ecumenical councils. In the modern ecumenical movement W.G. Rusch emphasizes that ecumenical reception refers to, “all phases and aspects of an ongoing process by which a church under the guidance of God’s Spirit makes the results of a bilateral or multilateral conversation a part of its faith and life because the results are seen to be in conformity with the teachings of Christ and of the apostolic community, that is, the gospel as witnessed to in Scripture”28. 27. WOOD, The Shifting Ecumenical Landscape (n. 1), p. 585. 28. W.G. RUSCH, The International Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue: An Example of Ecclesial Learning and Ecumenical Reception, in MURRAY (ed.), Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning (n. 6), 149-159, p. 149.

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Ecumenical reception, thus, is relatively new, and in the case of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification came about through a method called differentiated consensus. Each church signifies official agreement on a basic or core statement yet recognizes continuing differences that do not put the basic agreement back into question. Acceptance of the differentiated consensus is ecumenical reception. Wood underlines something Rusch too touched on, that “Reception, far more than official responses to dialogue results, is an all-compassing process of churches making their own the results of their encounter with one another”29. Pace Rusch and other contributors to dialogues I think that this process still remains only at the threshold of RE. O. Rush helpfully situates RE in reference to the Trinitarian constitution of Christianity out of which the ecumenical movement proceeds and toward which it tends. Because of prior divine initiative and grace in human and creaturely salvation, everything revealed and salutary is received from God above all in and through Christ. The gracious interior influence of the Holy Spirit makes possible the act (fides qua) and content (fides quae) of faith, the human reception of divine realities30. It is not out of place also to recall that out of the impact of the Spirit in baptism come the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. In distinguishable ways they open a direct personal relation with God. They are inherent in receiving Scripture and Tradition that mediate revelatory salvation generation after generation in the gospel communicated from persons to persons, place to place. In light of the receptive structure of ecclesial Christianity anything salutary received from one church by another has to do with what originally God has given the donor church and how that has been cherished and cultivated over centuries. An exchange of gifts between and among churches is an event in which the Spirit is the active ultimate giver, and the gospel is the Way received and transmitted in the churches somewhat differently. In a respectful spirit, attentive believers from one tradition notice and take account of the witness to the gospel in their ecclesial neighbors. Informal reception begins when what is learned from ecclesial others passes from informed appreciation to formative influence in which persons and communities gain understandings and make choices that express and define them in a way otherwise not likely. 29. WOOD, The Shifting Ecumenical Landscape (n. 1), p. 578. 30. O. RUSH, Receptive Ecumenism and the Sensus Fidelium: Expanding the Categories for a Catholic Reception of Revelation, in Theological Studies 78 (2017) 559-572, p. 565.

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At that point the recipient church’s life in the Spirit undergoes deepening transformation from what has been a gift from God through ecumenical others31. To advance beyond this beginning, what has been learned and received on the levels of experience and observation has to become appreciated, conceptually articulated, and reflected on by the receptive church. How have “we” become better Christians and a more authentic church from what we have received from “them”? But such reception follows from discernment. RE does not proceed with indifference to truth. It is not a casual borrowing from ecumenical others. Concern for “integrity” asks and answers, how well does what has been received comport with the receiving church’s prior reception of revelation and salvation? Does what has been appreciated in another tradition enter into harmony, in principle at least, with past or present reality in the receptive church’s life of faith, church order, and teaching of the gospel? Official episcopal and other modes of ecclesiastical authority matter and have a normative but not monopolizing task in answering. And yet reception cannot be boiled down to an authoritative ecclesial pronouncement on what an official dialogue has produced. Reception incorporates what Rush discusses as the sensus fidelium, and the faithful are laity and clergy, episcopacy and papacy but not one as if independent from the others. 2. Dialogue?32 RE re-imagines ecumenical relations beyond the method of dialogue yet seems best understood as presupposing landmark theological achievements in dialogue such as the bi-lateral Lutheran/Catholic Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification [JDDJ] and the multi-lateral Faith and Order Paper 214, The Church: Towards a Common Vision, not to mention the pastoral importance of the Porvoo agreement between the Nordic and Baltic Lutheran churches and the Anglican churches of Great Britain and Northern Ireland33. Likewise, RE in ARCIC III flowed 31. MURRAY, Receptive Ecumenism and Ecclesial Learning (n. 11), p. 32. 32. On principles of dialogue see WOOD, The Shifting Ecumenical Landscape (n. 1), pp. 585-586. 33. PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN UNITY, LUTHERAN WORLD FEDERATION, Joint Agreement on the Doctrine of Justification, http://www.vatican.va/ roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_31101999_ cath-luth-joint-declaration_en.html; WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES FAITH AND ORDER COMMISSION, The Church: Towards a Common Vision (Faith and Order Paper, 214), Geneva, World Council of Churches, 2013, https://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/ documents/commissions/faith-and-order/i-unity-the-church-and-its-mission/the-church-

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from a history of Anglican/Catholic dialogue. Advantages most likely will recur from further discussions and dialogues. Nevertheless, there may be no avoiding a tension between RE and the path of dialogues. Some might see RE as suiting a post-dialogical dispensation in the ecumenical movement, as I did initially. But insisting on the distinctness of RE does not side-step dialogue. Better to value, relativize, and question than to conceptually marginalize official dialogues. Questioning is not negating. In fact, interrogation of dialogue has had a venerable place in the ecumenical movement, starting with W. Visser ’t Hooft in 196934. Where Visser ’t Hooft asked if dialogue had come to be seen as already the realization of unity, another question can be put to dialogue in light of RE. Does the achievement of doctrinal convergence in published texts both registering consensus and en route to possible consensus have the unintended effect of exhibiting dialogue as if it were the sole method for movement toward visible unity? Do dialogues implicitly install their method as the characteristic act of hope for unity, a dialogue-alone outlook? Does success in doctrinal convergence tend to preclude the advent of a new approach like RE? More favorably, do dialogues leave ecumenical space open for RE? I think they do. For present purposes it is enough to recall that the Life and Work movement in the World Council of Churches already has shown that the ecumenical movement has had room for what does not revolve around or flow from the method of dialogue. In that regard RE is not new. And yet its communicable, repeatable, orienting, and guiding/ normative question, together with related attitudes of learning and receiving, followed by the receiving church’s transformation stirred by gifts from others bring into ecumenism new recurrent and related operations. That is to say, RE is a new method in ecumenism. Nevertheless, RE seeks not so much to advance unity directly but to enable and encourage its pre-condition, the holiness and authenticity internal to each church or ecclesial body humbly acknowledging shortcomings and struggles with a disposition open to learning and receiving from others. The newness of RE consists in providing a way to fulfill the pre-condition through conversion due to what has been received from ecumenical others. RE presumes and shares the desire for Christian unity but in a new inward direction that for the time being suspends impetus towards-a-common-vision. The Porvoo Common Statement, at http://www.porvoocommunion.org/porvoo_communion/statement/the-statement-in-english/. 34. N. LOSSKY – J.M. BONINO – J. POBEE – T.F. STRANSKY – G. WAINWRIGHT – P. WEBB (eds.), The Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, Geneva, WCC Publications, 2 2002, entry by P. NEUNER, Dialogue, Intrafaith, 317A-321B, p. 317B.

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toward structural, doctrinal, and cooperative motion. RE regains and implements the primacy of spiritual ecumenism. Dialogues oscillated with theological and pastoral re-assertions of ecclesial identities charmed or threatened by secularism. Re-prioritizing spiritual ecumenism does not jettison the indissociable work of external cooperation, dialogue, common witness, common study, common biblical translations, and some common worship. III. IDENTITY: KENOTIC ECCLESIOLOGY RE reflects an ecclesiology. Murray has been the principal architect and leading exponent of Receptive Ecumenism35. Surely his understandings matter most. And yet H.-G. Gadamer’s hermeneutical principle points out that meaning in texts slips the tight leash of sole determination by authorial and agential intent. Accordingly, respectful of Murray’s views while also taking account of other sources, the rest of this section proposes a key ecclesiological perspective in RE. The newness in RE consists, I propose, in commitment to a practice of kenotic ecclesiology infused with an explicitly pneumatological version of spiritual ecumenism. The Decree on Ecumenism had advised Catholics, “Nor should we forget that anything wrought by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of our separated brethren can be a help to our own edification. Whatever is truly Christian is never contrary to what genuinely belongs to the faith; indeed, it can always bring a deeper realization of the mystery of Christ and the Church”36. RE has discovered a new point of entry into that reality, and for all churches not only the Catholic. Each can relate as an ecclesia discens to ecumenical others as in some respect ecclesiae docentes. RE arises with an ecclesiological and ecumenical perception of the current state of affairs. It sees further Christian unity in history unable to take place except by incorporating a specific kind of ecclesial conversion, church by church, congregation by congregation, person by person. Reception of what God gives through ecumenical others evokes gentle, repentant conversion that opens eyes not only to divisions as aggression against Christ’s mission but also and characteristically to reconciliation 35. See PIZZEY, Heart and Soul (n. 5), pp. 7-17, 66-94 for details on Murray’s perspectives. 36. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, http:// www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_ 19641121_unitatis-redintegratio_en.html (UR 4, para. 9).

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through attention to and reception of how God has been and remains active in ecumenical others37. The portal to the whole process is a kenotic ecclesiology. 1. Kenotic Ecclesiology The method of ecumenical dialogue has strong ties with communion ecclesiology oriented by the missio Dei38. But communio ecclesiology may not be the last word on Trinitarian ecclesiology. The kenotic ecclesiology I see in RE emphasizes the distinct person, procession, and mission of the Holy Spirit. That emphasis on the distinct mission and procession coincides with, though not deriving from, N. Ormerod’s critique of communio ecclesiologies that assert Trinitarian community of equally divine persons while neglecting that the processions of Son and Spirit are distinct by relation of origin from the Father and from the Father and Son as one39. In this sub-section I only begin to indicate the kind of Trinitarian ecclesiology that RE seems to me to enact. Further discussion of RE would do well to address the kind of Trinitarian ecclesiology underlying both RE and dialogues. Two different but non-contradictory ecclesiologies may be at stake in the two methods. It may be that, for example, the communio ecclesiology behind dialogues does not lend itself to a kenotic moment. With historical consciousness of the ecumenical movement Murray himself asked, “Is There Actually Anything New about Receptive Ecumenism”? In answer he emphasized the re-orienting question that shifts away from a church’s engagement in ecumenism primarily as an ecclesia docens responsible for comprehensive and accurate witness to how we articulate and communicate our Christianity to ecumenical others40. 37. See the PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN UNITY, Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism. N. 25 averred that, “those whose lives are marked by repentance will be especially sensitive to the sinfulness of divisions and will pray for forgiveness and conversion. Those who seek holiness will be able to recognize its fruits also outside the visible boundaries of their own Church” (http://www. vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_ doc_25031993_principles-and-norms-on-ecumenism_en.html). 38. On ties between dialogue and communion ecclesiology see NEUNER, Dialogue, Interfaith (n. 34), pp. 317B-319B. The WCC convergence document, The Church: Toward a Common Vision, embraces both the lengthy, arduous, multi-lateral path of dialogue and a communion ecclesiology marked by an organizing affirmation of mission initially and continually originating in missio Dei. 39. See N. ORMEROD, A (Non-Communio) Trinitarian Ecclesiology: Grounded in Grace, Lived in Faith, Hope, and Charity, in Theological Studies 76 (2015) 448-468. 40. MURRAY, Receptive Ecumenism and Ecclesial Learning (n. 11), p. 38.

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Instead, in the words of the Third International Conference on Receptive Ecumenism, “…the primary ecumenical responsibility is to ask not ‘What do the other traditions first need to learn from us?’ but ‘What do we need to learn from them’”41? That reversed direction of inquiry in RE moves from one perspective on ecclesial existence in history to another. The kenotic perspective foregrounds ecclesial incompleteness and the humility of a church learning from ecumenical others not incidentally but characteristically. Each church is vulnerable at least to its own incompleteness in discipleship. In RE each church goes beyond its actualized spiritual status quo by hearkening to what, in ecclesial self-lowering, it can gain from the ecumenical other(s)42. Such ecclesial self-abnegation does not duplicate or mirror the kenosis of Jesus in Philippians 2 but it does gesture toward participation insofar as it is a mode of selfemptying. Then too, Murray’s focus on what is new in RE shifts to ecclesial and personal interiority. Receiving and learning enable churches to become more what they are, graced Trinitarian communities in which faith, hope, and charity result from and serve the missio Dei. Receptive churches gain some graced, providential opportunities to advance into their own more authentic discipleship. Murray’s bold surmise is that churches, if open to transformation through divine grace mediated by ecumenical others, can deepen their lives of faith and witness. That openness to being transformed by grace through others taking on the role of the Good Samaritan is a step into ecclesial kenosis. Ecclesial inwardness in conversion and transformation by God’s grace temporarily interrupt looking ahead to eventual unity. Something like an ecclesial retreat intervenes to allow for attention to how God is acting through others within a recipient church. The spirit is one of gratitude for the many ways the Holy Spirit acts in the ordinary life and ministry of divided churches and not only in their search for unity.

41. P.D. MURRAY, Receptive Ecumenism: Conference III Papers, quoted by the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture: Wisdom for the Common Good, 4th International Conference on Receptive Ecumenism, at https://arts-ed.csu.edu.au/centres/accc/ projects/2017-conference-receptive-ecumenism/conference. 42. The Decree on Ecumenism states: “some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ” (UR 3, para. 2).

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2. Holy Spirit How is the Spirit the active principle in RE? A telling statement by Rush observes that, “any theology of ‘receptive ecumenism’ must be grounded in a pneumatology which gives appropriate weight to this active principle of reception, the Holy Spirit”43. In kenosis in RE, the Spirit leads churches to vulnerability and humility that commend receptivity especially when churches face their own needs, problems, and struggles as occasions for interior renewal through gifts received from ecumenical others. Without adverting to RE Pope Francis exclaims, “If we really believe in the abundantly free working of the Holy Spirit, we can learn so much from one another”!44. And that growth in belief involves an experiential difference not only a variant ecclesiological concept. The difference is like that between ecumenists representing churches exchanging views on a matter of common concern and ecumenists owning insecurities in their churches and turning to ecumenical others as friends in time of need. That shift is a kenosis with trust enough in ecumenical others to ask for informed assistance. The churches empty themselves of a sense of self-sufficiency in carrying out their life, mission, and pastoral ministry. In Spirit-evoked kenosis, RE starts in ecclesial vulnerability and humility that commends receptivity in general but especially when churches face their needs, problems, and struggles. It is helpful to note that ecclesial vulnerability does not compromise Catholic teaching on the fullness of means to the end of salvation45. Teaching on the Catholic fullness of means does not deny the presence of real means in other churches, means that are efficacious and suffice for salvation – the presence of the Holy Spirit, the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, the Scriptures, liturgy, patristic tradition, ministry, communication of the gospel, etc. –. Nor does affirming the fullness of means in Catholicism include assurance that those means are actually and pastorally available in all historical, cultural, and geographical contexts and situations where the church exists. Human limits and sinfulness,

43. RUSH, Receptive Ecumenism (n. 30), p. 560, n. 1. 44. POPE FRANCIS, Apostolic Exhortation on the Joy of the Gospel, Evangelii Gaudium, 24 November 2013, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html#Ecumenical_ dialogue (EG 246). 45. On the fullness of means see the Decree on Ecumenism (UR 3, para. 4 and UR 4, para. 6).

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not only sanctity, can affect ministering the means; counter-witness diminishes whereas sanctity increases efficacy in preaching, for example46. Further, and decisively there is no clerical or lay control over the mission of the Holy Spirit Who blows were it will and Who can raise up holy people aided by whatever means may be available in a given church at a given time. Similarly, unpredictable human creativity and inspiration enter into exercise of the means and can be maximal in exercise of less than full means while minimal in exercise of the additional means. Ecclesial humility and vulnerability befit the ecumenical posture of Catholicism no less than of any other church. 3. Spiritual Ecumenism How does what has been received and learned from ecumenical others incite interior renewal within recipient churches and individuals? Recalling what has been said about RE as renewal of spiritual ecumenism the answer gets to the root of RE as a new version of spiritual ecumenism with a pronounced kenotic quality. The new perspective introduced by asking what “we” in one tradition can learn and receive from others does not in the first instance seek more common ground from which to advance the invaluable cause of doctrinal and structural unity. Rather the question unlocks the door to conceptual articulation and deliberation about the interiority of lives moved to deeper faith, hope, and charity by realities in other churches. Attention to inward changes in members’ and churches’ life and thought relies on humble recognition that ecumenical others can teach “our” church about God, Christ, and gospel in areas we may feel are less than stellar on our church’s path to actualizing holiness and mission. For RE the way ahead is the way within. A kenotic ecclesiology of individually and corporately self-emptying love of ecumenical others springs from the transforming love of God poured out into believers’ hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5,5). I go on to affirm that the distinct mission (procession plus temporal effect according to Aquinas) of the Holy Spirit involves the temporal effect of a kenosis distinct from that of Christ (John 1,1-14 and Phil 2,5-11). In that mission, the kenosis unique to the Spirit of God becomes the Spirit poured out in humanity, whether welcomed or not. Where welcomed the indwelling Spirit is Uncreated Grace eliciting repentance and infusing faith, hope, and charity that enable 46. This reflection draws on A. DULLES Models of the Church, Expanded Edition, New York, Doubleday, 1987.

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further conversion and transformation in believers’ lives. RE’s kenotic ecclesiology, focusing on kenosis by the Spirit and on Christian interiority, aligns more closely with Paul’s writings on the interior influence of the Spirit than with Luke’s chronicle of Paul’s self-expending missionary labors and travels in Acts. These were two modes of the influence from the kenotic Spirit moving two modes of self-transcending human kenosis. RE as spiritual ecumenism is more like the mode in Pauline writings. RE joins Pauline emphasis on conversion and sanctification with ecumenism in a new kind of spiritual ecumenism. Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism describes spiritual ecumenism as “the soul of the whole ecumenical movement”47. Desires and prayer for unity, advises the document, arise from “self-denial and unstinted love” along with “change of heart” accompanied by “renewal of the inner life of our minds”48. The 1993 Directory from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity re-affirms that, “In the ecumenical movement it is necessary to give priority to conversion of heart, spiritual life and its renewal”49. So too in 1995 Pope John Paul II confirmed conciliar and postconciliar teaching by insisting that, “the commitment to ecumenism must be based upon the conversion of hearts and upon prayer, which will also lead to the necessary purification of past memories”50. The conversion at issue and the purification of memories have ecclesial as well as personal dimensions because, “In the teaching of the Second Vatican Council there is a clear connection between renewal, conversion and reform”51. In the Council’s documents all three pertain to both church and individuals52. Yet, surprisingly, none of these documents states in so many words that spiritual ecumenism has a special link with the Holy Spirit. The Decree on Ecumenism comes close in recommending that, “we should … pray to the Holy Spirit for the grace to be genuinely self-denying, humble, gentle in the service of others, and to have an attitude of … generosity towards them”53. And the Directory for its part re-asserts that the Spirit is the ultimate principle of unity in the partially divided church, but leaves unsaid anything about the Spirit actively influencing 47. UR 8, para. 1. 48. UR 7, para. 1. 49. Directory (n. 37), n. 63. 50. JOHN PAUL II, On Commitment to Ecumenism, Ut unum sint, May, 1995, http:// w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ ut-unum-sint.html (UUS 3, para. 2). 51. UUS 16, para. 1. 52. Ibid. 53. UR 7, para. 1.

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churches through what they receive from ecumenical others54. Further, in the encyclical On Commitment to Ecumenism, Ut unum sint John Paul II teaches that, “we can say that in some real way they [Catholicism’s ecumenical others] are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them also he gives his gifts and graces and is thereby operative among them with his sanctifying power”55. Yet, not in evidence is the principle formative in RE: The Spirit inspires receptivity to God’s gifts in and from other churches. RE thereby embarks on a new stage in spiritual ecumenism in line with the reminder in the Decree on Ecumenism: “Nor should we forget that anything wrought by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of our separated brethren can be a help to our own edification”56. RE identifies, heeds, and enacts one specific, concrete way in which the mission of the Holy Spirit has its temporal effect in relations among churches. RE’s reorienting question about learning and receiving from ecumenical others penetrates to the witness of lived faith influenced by the Spirit, but without concentration on prayer for unity and communicatio in sacris typically associated with spiritual ecumenism. Instead RE cultivates sensitivity to how the ever-active Spirit moves churches to learn and receive from ecumenical others. RE brings to the table a new approach to carrying out what the Decree on Ecumenism commends, “the renewal of the inner life of our minds” in “the soul of the ecumenical movement” stirred by the Spirit. Murray’s many references to the Spirit in his 2013 summary indicate the vibrant pneumatological theme in RE57. Invoking a traditional distinction in the theology of grace lends support to the originality of RE. Murray directs attention to churches, “…being transformed by God’s grace mediated through each other”. The distinction between Uncreated grace (God) and created grace (the human as transformed) can be applied to RE. Created grace pertains to churches insofar as they are “being transformed by God’s grace mediated through each other”58. God is grace and transformation flows from God. Transformation, conversion, comes from the prior presence and influence of Uncreated grace, the indwelling Holy Spirit active in all churches. Uncreated Grace Who is the one Spirit active in all churches is the prior divine principle moving churches’ members both to mediate and to receive gifts due to created grace across lines of division. In that respect 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

Directory (n. 37), nn. 9, 11, 18, 22, 39, 62, 96, 161. UUS 12, para. 1. UR 4, para. 9. MURRAY, Families of Receptive Theological Learning (n. 19), pp. 85-88. MURRAY, Receptive Ecumenism: Conference III Papers (n. 41).

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the positive, direct and indirect witness of churches is like a sacrament to each other. Furthermore, and in accord with the kenotic mission of the Spirit attested in Rm 5,5, what underlies and motivates RE is first of all the primary created grace in Christians that is the infused theological virtue of charity, love for God above all and neighbors as oneself. The first impact of the unifying, inspiring Spirit in those hearing the Word of God and believing is the pouring out of the love of God into their human hearts. The pouring-out is the universal kenotic mission of the Spirit. Love for God and neighbor are enabled by the poured-out Spirit not by ignition from afar but from the Spirit indwelling as long as hearts by choice stay open. RE is pneumatological praxis. Rightly, then, maintains Murray, though without explicit mention of the Spirit, “…all ecumenical learning consists most deeply in an ‘affair of the heart’ through being attracted by, desiring and falling in love with something of the gracefilled beauty of another tradition…”59. I interpret Murray in light of Lonergan’s theology of conversion as being-in-love to mean that ecumenical learning depends on Christians unpredictably though frequently coming to love God’s gifts in another church’s concrete realities that can be received with integrity60. Discussion of RE as a theological method ushers in a theologically reasonable conclusion: RE is a distinctive ecumenical method animated by a kenotic ecclesiology in pneumatologically spiritual ecumenism. Kenosis, self-emptying, occurs when churches and their members turn away from ecclesial self-sufficiency and toward acceptance of the need to learn and receive from others. Even more distinctive is attention to recipients’ interior spiritual ecumenism, to the influence of the Holy Spirit, and to the transformation prompted by what has been received. Kenotic ecclesiology first allows influence from others to promote recipients’ own conversion rather than first reaching out generously to and with ecumenical others to explore common ground and common witness.

59. MURRAY, Families of Receptive Theological Learning (n. 19), p. 86. 60. On Lonergan’s theology of being-in-love with God see LONERGAN, Method in Theology (n. 23), pp. 105-113. On charity as the well-spring of ecumenism see T. HUGHSON, The Holy Spirit and Ecumenism: A Shift from Hope to Charity, in M. CHAPMAN (ed.), Hope in the Ecumenical Future (Pathways in Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue), London, Springer Nature/Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, 27-44.

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IV. FLEXIBILITY But if RE is a method, does it rigidly exclude initiatives with an ecumenical aspect that have arisen outside its purview? For example, does Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in Peril? [EcoReformation] instantiate RE because of a pronounced affinity with Pope Francis’s Laudato si’: On Care for Our Common Home61? Is RE flexible or rigid, open or closed? In commemoration of the fifth centenary of Luther posting his 95 Theses, L.E. Dahill and J.B. Martin-Schramm edited independent essays from 16 Lutheran theologians who support the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America statement, Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope and Justice in concert with the Lutheran World Federation62. Some had been published previously then revised for the book; in ensemble 500 years after Martin Luther initiated the Reformation, the essays present the beginning of a new, comprehensive vision of and for the Protestant Reformation. Interestingly JDDJ does not figure in the new outlook. In Eco-Reformation the spiritual problem of the age is the ecological crisis, not justification. The editors declare a common theological orientation among the authors in the “…common conviction … that a gospel call for ecological justice belongs at the heart of the five hundredth anniversary observance of the Reformation in 2017”63. Editors and authors re-conceive the meaning of the Reformation in response to refusal of creaturehood rather than to self-justification signaled by the terrified conscience. All agree that ecclesia semper reformanda now has to do with heeding God’s call to eco-conversion. In eco-Reformation the salvation of human creaturehood cannot be divided from human care for the rest of creation. Luther’s theology of creation comes to the fore, though some anchor eco-Reformation in his theology of justification by grace through faith in Christ. What may be unexpected is stated approval of a papal teaching, Laudato si’: On Care for Our Common Home. The authors learned nothing new about the science of the eco-crisis or about the need for eco-conversion 61. POPE FRANCIS, Laudato si’: On Care for Our Common Home, at http://w2.vatican. va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclicalaudato-si.html. 62. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Faith and Society Social Statements, Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope and Justice, adopted by the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in 1993, at https://www.elca.org/en/Faith/Faith-and-Society/Social-Statements/Caringfor-Creation. 63. DAHILL – MARTIN-SCHRAMM (eds.), Eco-Reformation (n. 3), p. xii.

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on the part of Christianity. What they receive from Laudato si’ is a theologically and pastorally detailed, scientifically-informed urging of ecological conversion64. They respect Laudato si’ for corroborating, advancing, and to some extent leading Christian reception of this new call from God. Eco-Reformation is ecological conversion on the ecclesial not only the personal scale. In Eco-Reformation heeding God’s call to eco-conversion defines the future of the Protestant Reformation. Even more surprising than approval of Laudato si’, the editors speculate that, “Perhaps here is a voice today like that of the 1517 Luther”65. Seven authors refer explicitly to Francis and Laudato si’, for example, D. Rhoads remarks that, “we join with Pope Francis and the Roman Catholic Church along with other Christian traditions in seeking justice for all Earth community”66. A.M. Vigen goes so far as to aver that in calling for eco-conversion Francis “is a kindred spirit” with Luther who objected to our being incurvatus in se67. Vigen remarks that “Pope Francis is just the kind of reforming papacy… that Luther was looking for back in 1517”68. 1. Luther’s Theology of Creation A substantial theological literature on Lutheran understandings of nature comes to the surface in several contributions to Eco-Reformation. W. Deifelt advises that, “The environmental question is a theological question”, not only a matter for ethical deliberations69. More than ethical values are needed to deal with the eco-crisis. More basic is the theology of nature as creation. Luther’s theology of creation is essential, though usually eclipsed by justification, grace, cross, two kingdoms, gospel and law, etc. Still, explains D. Rhoads, in religious and theological principle Luther “laid the groundwork for this foundational paradigm shift” from a Reformation revolving around free grace justifying through faith to an 64. On eco-conversion in Laudato si’ see N. ORMEROD – C. VANIN, Ecological Conversion: What Does It Mean?, in Theological Studies 77 (2016) 328-352. 65. DAHILL – MARTIN-SCHRAMM (eds.), Eco-Reformation (n. 3), p. xii. 66. D. RHOADS, A Theology of Creation: Foundations for an Eco-Reformation, in DAHILL – MARTIN-SCHRAMM (eds.), Eco-Reformation (n. 3), 1-20, p. 5. 67. A.M. VIGEN, Living Advent and Lent: A Call to Embody Reformation for the Sake of Human and Planetary Health, in DAHILL – MARTIN-SCHRAMM (eds.), Eco-Reformation (n. 3), 234-252, pp. 238-239. 68. Ibid., p. 239. 69. W. DEIFELT, Out of Brokenness, a New Creation: Theology of the Cross and the Tree of Life, in DAHILL – MARTIN-SCHRAMM (eds.), Eco-Reformation (n. 3), 55-70, p. 68.

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Eco-Reformation centered in creation”70. Likewise, E. Simmins interprets and appropriates Luther’s theology of creation, noting that Luther “reads the creation christologically. This is the basis for Luther’s sacramental theology”, nowhere more evident than in regard to the Eucharist71. In 1527, Luther penned a polemic on the Eucharist against U. Zwingli, “That These Words of Christ, ‘This is My Body’, etc. Still Stand Firm against the Fanatics”72. The Eucharist cannot be lacking the real presence of Christ, not only because of its divine institution but also and first of all because of divine immanence in creation. Luther propounded the traditional understanding that, “God is substantially present everywhere, in and through all creatures, in all their parts and places, so that the world is full of God and He [sic] fills all, but without His [sic] being encompassed and surrounded by it”73. Consequently, points out Simmins, Luther related the bread and wine in the Eucharist to divine immanence. “God was already there as God is in all of creation”, but “through the Word and Spirit they become … [present] in a specific, forgiving, ‘Real Presence’ way, as the means of grace”74. Simmins then quotes the profession of faith from Luther’s Small Catechism, “I believe that God has created me together with all that exists”75. Simmins comments that, “through our own experience of being created … we have a window into the rest of creation and to the creator God to be found ‘in, with, and under’ it”76. We are able to associate with Luther who was, “a normal creation mystic” finding God in nature and everyday life. Our physical life is already divine grace, “the grace of life … the grace of creation”77. Simmins interprets Luther’s life and work in relation to creation. “Luther himself saw the justifying grace of God as acting to restore nature and the human/nature relationship”78. Similarly, Rhoads counsels that,“it is critical from a theological point of view to restore the human relationship with nature everywhere as a place God loves, as a place where God is at work, and as a place where 70. RHOADS, A Theology of Creation (n. 66), p. 5. 71. E. SIMMINS, Liberal Arts for Sustainability: Lutheran Higher Education in the Anthropocene, in DAHILL – MARTIN-SCHRAMM (eds.), Eco-Reformation (n. 3), 197-216, p. 200. 72. Ibid., p. 201. 73. Ibid., quoting Luther in R.H. FISCHER (ed.), Word and Sacrament III (LW 37, pp. 3-150), Philadelphia, PA, Muhlenberg, 1961, pp. 59-60. 74. Ibid., p. 201. 75. Ibid., p. 197. 76. Ibid., p. 199. 77. Ibid., p. 201. 78. Ibid., p. 212.

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God encounters us, and we encounter God”79. In light of the Incarnation, “We now need to take seriously”, Rhoads maintains, “that God is profoundly immanent”80. Luther’s creation mysticism is open to and invites all contemporary Christians. 2. Is Eco-Reformation a Version of Receptive Ecumenism? Does affinity with Francis on the eco-crisis and the call to ecoconversion make Eco-Reformation an instance of RE? Yes, to some extent but with three variations that lead to seeing RE as descriptive or interpretative no less than as prescriptive with a normative question. An overlap with RE occurs in three major respects. First, the authors proceed with kenotic humility insofar as they recognize that the ecocrisis and God’s call to eco-conversion and eco-Reformation are not yet the Lutheran identity and agenda but represent a Lutheran need. Second, while proceeding in an ecumenical spirit the editors and authors do not propose their themes for dialogical exchange with ecumenical others. Third, they engage to some extent in spiritual ecumenism though not in explicit reference to the Holy Spirit. Like RE’s turn to the inner life of a receiving church, they look first of all to God calling Lutheran Christians to eco-conversion. In that way they do not travel the path of dialogue but of spiritual ecumenism and internal conversion. In this Eco-Reformation’s tone and content follow the RE path of relating something received from an ecumenical other to the recipient church’s struggle with faith amid the eco-crisis. In so doing Eco-Reformation spontaneously adopts the normative standpoint of RE in kenotic ecclesiology that faces a tradition’s need and struggle. Lutheran perspectives in Eco-Reformation approximate RE’s new and normative question about how an ecclesial “we” can benefit from what is learned from ecumenical others, in this case from Laudato si’. And yet RE does not describe Eco-Reformation completely. Nor do its authors express an outlook exactly the same as RE. For example, their main focus falls on theological revision of the present and future meaning of the Reformation in response to the new spiritual situation of eco-crisis. Nor does Eco-Reformation interpret Lutheran eco-conversion with detailed reference to the mission of the Holy Spirit. The mission of the Holy Spirit is integral to RE but not to formulations of conversion in Eco-Reformation. And yet it is like RE in kenotic attention to Lutheran 79. RHOADS, A Theology of Creation (n. 66), p. 9. 80. Ibid.

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need for eco-conversion, for personal and ecclesial renewal in heeding a new call from God and so seeks a deepening of personal holiness and ecclesial discipleship. The very absence of effort to push ahead the agenda of the ecumenical movement coupled with respect for Laudato si’ qualifies Eco-Reformation as a new moment in ecumenism that pertains not only to Lutheran/Catholic common cause on the eco-crisis but also to other churches and ecclesial bodies likewise called by God to eco-conversion. Applying RE to Eco-Reformation discloses not only a partial parallel to RE. It also brings to light a heuristic capacity in RE. The application discovers in Eco-Reformation much of the spirit if not the letter of RE. This discovery indicates that with its distinct method and ecclesiological theme RE serves articulation and organization of a new direction in ecumenism carried forward also by initiatives arising outside the auspices of RE. For that reason, besides being a prescriptive method RE has the capacity to be an interpretative, descriptive benchmark. RE enables a reading of Eco-Reformation, for example, that extends the spirit of kenosis in RE to human creatureliness, care for creation, and God’s call to eco-conversion. In this reading eco-conversion is common ground not only for Lutherans and Catholics but for all Christians, not least the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox churches from whose traditions of cosmic Christology and Spirit ecclesiology Protestants and Catholics can continue to learn. V. CONCLUSION FOR

THE

FUTURE

Eco-Reformation offers fulfillment of a principle formative in Receptive Ecumenism, namely that something, Laudato si’ for example, from one church can be received in another church as a gift from God, a graced means to personal, pastoral, and theological growth and conversion in the recipient church. Reciprocally, and arguably, the chapters in EcoReformation are just such a gift to Christian brothers and sisters in Catholic and other churches. This ecumenical breadth is implied by the nature of eco-conversion even though the authors argue primarily for fellow Lutherans on why the Protestant Reformation can and should become the eco-Reformation in response to the creaturely eco-crisis and God’s call to eco-conversion. Consequently, and in light of RE, the next matter at hand for Catholics becomes whether or not they whose faith already contains an obediential predisposition to Francis as bishop of Rome can receive with integrity

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the overall proposal in Eco-Reformation, mutatis mutandis. In my opinion reception is appropriate not least but not only because the Lutheran call to eco-conversion is capable of stirring and enlightening Catholics toward a more fruitful, faithful reading of Laudato si’ on eco-conversion to a new care for creation. The Lutheran book prods Catholics to become better Catholics as well as to discover common ground with Lutherans and other Christians. Neither Lutheran theologians’ welcome of Laudato si’ outside the structure of an ecumenical dialogue nor the valid possibility of Catholic reception of Eco-Reformation for the sake of care for creation were produced by or destined for formal dialogues. But I have argued that Eco-Reformation is in the spirit of RE and so would be Catholic reception of the Lutheran perspectives on the eco-crisis. Consequently I would venture the following prudential, pastoral question about the future of both RE and dialogues. May the time be at hand for RE to become the de facto interim primary approach in the ecumenical movement, with ecumenical dialogues its auxiliary? However, if the answer is, as I think, yes, then both methods still need to be in the scales. The shifting balance would depend on the facts, including culture and external political forces, in the ecclesial context. From context to context, and over time in one or the other, unpredictable shifts and prudential responses cannot be systematized into a standard schedule. The advisability of the primacy of one or the other at a given time depends on the imponderables of context. It would be beside the point to develop a de iure, fixed, programmatic plan for RE and dialogue. But the overall direction can lie toward RE. At the same time the future of RE as pneumatological praxis of kenotic spiritual ecumenism seems impossible without at some point re-instating ecumenical dialogue changed by RE. Although this question needs further exploration, it can be asked if RE may not be a breakthrough to a new kind of ecumenical dialogue presupposing the traits of RE discussed in this chapter. Apart from new dialogue at various levels how else could multiple processes and partial outcomes in different churches in diverse contexts be communicated and brought into conversation across confessional lines? In South Australia, the South Australian Conference of Churches seems to be well along in bringing RE into local, parish, and personally spiritual implementation81. There dialogue could take second place until new depth in unity spontaneously and more humbly led fellow believers to move into dialogue altered by RE. But the situation in South Australia, 81. See PIZZEY, Heart and Soul (n. 5), pp. 292-298.

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while exemplary, is far from ubiquitous even in Australia. Other ecumenical conferences on other continents too might well look to South Australia for the path forward. Will the South Australian Conference of Churches usher in not only an interim, de facto primacy of RE but also and eventually a new kind of ecumenical dialogue? Arrupe House Jesuit Community Marquette University 831 N. 13th St. Milwaukee, WI 53233 USA [email protected]

Thomas HUGHSON

REMEMBERING THE REFORMATION ECUMENICALLY AND ENGAGING THE FUTURE OF ECUMENISM

In order to reflect once again on the theme of Ecclesia semper reformanda it is appropriate to both look backwards, to the past common commemoration of the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, and forwards, to the ecumenical challenges before us, especially with respect to the Lutheran – Roman Catholic dialogue. I. THE ECUMENICAL COMMEMORATION

OF THE

REFORMATION

The fact that in 2017 the Reformation was commemorated and even celebrated ecumenically throughout the world is by itself a sign of a reform in the self-understanding of the churches and a deep change in the culture of remembrance. All previous centenaries of the Reformation gave rise to sharp polemics between Catholics and Protestants1. They accused each other of having betrayed the apostolic heritage of the church, of error and heresy, even of being on the way to eternal damnation. The fifth centenary in 2017, by contrast, took on a quite different shape from previous centenaries. In many countries and in many places the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches jointly commemorated 500 years of Reformation, and in most cases did so without polemics. This can be called a reformation of ecclesial memory. Five or ten years ago, one would not have expected that everything we saw during this year would happen. The situations of the churches commemorating the Reformation are quite different from one another. There are churches in countries whose history was deeply influenced by the events that we call “the Reformation” and their Wirkungsgeschichte, for example Germany or the Nordic countries. In 2017, an article was published in a German newspaper by

1. H.-J. SCHÖNSTÄDT, Antichrist, Weltheilsgeschehen und Gottes Werkzeug: Römische Kirche, Reformation und Luther im Spiegel des Reformationsjubiläums 1617, Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner, 1978; D. WENDEBOURG, Vergangene Reformationsjubiläen: Ein Rückblick im Vorfeld von 2017, in EAD., So viele Luthers…: Die Reformationsjubiläen des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2017, 9-30.

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a Finnish author with the title “Luther – the most important Finn”2. This funny headline indicates the deep influence of the Lutheran Reformation on Finnish culture. The context for commemorating the Reformation in Finland is quite different, though, from the context in Sao Leopoldo, Brazil, for example, a predominantly Catholic country, or in Tokyo, Japan, where all Christians together represent a very tiny minority. Notwithstanding these differences, joint Catholic-Lutheran commemorations took place in very many countries. This is astonishing if we take into consideration the logic of collective commemoration3. Anniversaries or centenaries are opportunities and challenges for communities to tell publicly where they come from in order to identify who they are or wish to be. Since commemorating one’s own history is part of one’s self-understanding, the perception of one’s history is also shaped by the current self-understanding and contemporary interests of the community. Therefore, collective commemoration of history often tells us more about how communities see themselves in the present than what their origins and history actually were. If such commemorations are intertwined with questions of legitimacy (for example, if there is a conflict over the borders of a nation or the political system), they may easily lead to fierce conflicts. The first centenary of the Reformation in 1617 might have contributed to the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War4. In order to identify the special challenge of an ecumenical commemoration of the Reformation, we can compare it with the joint commemoration of the history of two nations that were in conflict over centuries, such as Germany and France. The history of their relations was painful, but two terrible wars in the twentieth century convinced both sides that it would be disastrous to continue the old enmity. Since there are no longer any controversial claims that call for certain narratives in order to justify them, historians on both sides have been able to revise old onesided versions of their shared history. Thus, in 2014, a joint commemoration of the beginning of World War I did not lead to new conflicts. But commemorating the Reformation would prove to be much more difficult. Both the Roman-Catholic church and the Lutheran churches see 2. R. NYBERG, Luther, der wichtigste Finne, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 9, 2017 (http://www.anselm.fi/luther-der-wichtigste-finne/, visited October 15, 2018) (my translation). 3. Cf. A. ASSMANN, Erinnerungsräume: Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses, München, Beck, 2011. 4. This was the opinion of historians already in the seventeenth century. See J. BURKHARDT, Der Dreißigjährige Krieg, Frankfurt a.M., Suhrkamp, 1992, pp. 128-143.

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themselves in line with the doctrinal positions that were in conflict in the sixteenth century. They still make claims to truth for the positions that were in conflict at the time of the Reformation. And the split of the Western church continues to exist and is attributed by most Catholics to the Reformation. How can the history of conflicts disappear when the churches claim to be the same both now and in the past? Thus the ecumenical movement was especially challenged in preparing for the 500th anniversary. 2017 would prove to be a very serious test case for ecumenism. For a long time, many Catholics insisted that in 2017 nothing whatsoever could be celebrated because the Reformation led to the split of the church, and the split of the church as a bad event cannot be celebrated. Lutherans, on the contrary, focused on what they had received from the Lutheran reformers that shaped their churches; they were grateful for it and thus wished to celebrate it. They did not understand their churches as having originated in the Reformation, but regarded them as “the Catholic church that went through the Reformation”5, and they lamented the split of the Western church, too. The connotations of the word “Reformation” were so different that a common commemoration, let alone a common celebration, seemed to be out of the question. The International Lutheran – Roman Catholic Commission on Unity discussed these questions for more than four years. What turned out to be an obstacle to progress was that people tended to use the phrase “the Reformation” in singular, even though historians nowadays speak of “the Wittenberg Reformation”, “the Zurich Reformation”, “the Geneva Reformation”, “the Radical reformation”, “the Magisterial reformation”, and so on. Such observations should lead us to the insight that “Reformation” is not an entity well defined in itself. Rather, by using the word, we are pointing to a highly complex phenomenon. Thus, the meanings of this word are not simply right or wrong, but more or less useful for discussing certain aspects of this complex phenomenon. The book From Conflict to Communion6, the outcome of the Commission’s work, has a chapter that offers a historical sketch of the encounters of the Wittenberg movement with Catholic authorities. In this chapter, “Reformation” is understood as a sequence of events, beginning with 5. This is the wording of Bishop W. HUBER, Überlegungen zum Stand der Ökumene: Vortrag vor der Hamburgischen Kommende des Johanniterordens [2007] (https://www. ekd.de/070825_huber_hamburg.htm; visited October 10, 2018). 6. LUTHERAN WORLD FEDERATION – PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN UNITY, From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran-Catholic Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 2017. See chapter 3.

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Luther’s 95 Theses on Indulgences (1517) and leading to the Council of Trent (1545-1563). These events have many subjects, not only Luther and the other reformers, but also cardinals and popes, kings and princes and the emperor, even the Ottomans. Even though in this chain of events Luther and his theology played an important role, there were very many other actors involved in the process, whose end was the division of the Western church. Usually, when we use the word “Reformation” in the singular, we explicitly or implicitly regard the Wittenberg reformers as those to whom a certain process in the sixteenth century and its consequences should be attributed. But if we understand “Reformation” as a sequence of events, then its results must be attributed to many actors, and it was this sequence that led to the split of the church. In another chapter of From Conflict to Communion7, four basic aspects of Luther’s theology are described (justification, the Lord’s Supper, ministry, and Scripture and Tradition). In this case, if we have the reformers’ theological insights in mind, and call them “Reformation”, then the word “Reformation” has a very different meaning as compared to the previous one. In this chapter, Luther’s theology is presented against the background of the ecumenical dialogues that, many centuries later, sought to address the conflict of those aspects of Luther’s theology with Catholic doctrine in the Council of Trent and with respect to the Second Vatican Council. Here conflicting truth claims have been addressed. The dialogues claim to have demonstrated that Luther’s theology and Catholic doctrine do not mutually exclude each other; rather, their relationship should be defined in new ways. It was observed that both doctrines use different “languages”, so that the same words may have different meanings, or they employ different thought structures, so that it is misleading if certain sentences are taken out of each respective “system” and are directly compared to each other. This was done quite often in history, especially for polemical purposes. But if one takes into consideration the differences in language, thought structure, concerns, etc., one is able to identify more common ground between the two doctrinal systems than was seen in previous centuries. If “Reformation” is then understood as the ensemble of theological and spiritual insights of the Lutheran reformers, and if ecumenical dialogues have shown that Catholics can share many of these insights, then Catholics also may be thankful for the Reformation (in this sense) and thus celebrate with Lutherans.

7. Ibid., chapter 4.

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With respect to the other meaning or dimension of “Reformation” – the chain of events that led to the split of the church – both Lutherans and Catholics lament and even confess their sins against unity. The distinction between two dimensions of “Reformation” allowed for a differentiated commemoration; it was comprised of joy and lament, gratitude and confession. The document From Conflict to Communion ended up being the basis for the ecumenical prayer service held in Lund on October 31, 2016, led jointly by Pope Francis and the leaders of the Lutheran World Federation. At the beginning, Pope Francis said in his prayer: “O Holy Spirit, help us to rejoice in the gifts that have come to the church through the Reformation”, he continued: “prepare us to repent for the dividing walls that we, and our forebears, have built”, and, finally, “equip us for common witness and service in the world”8. The three elements of the pope’s prayer reflect the structure of the whole prayer service: looking back in two ways, in thanksgiving and regret, and then looking ahead: the churches now commit themselves to continue on the journey from conflict to communion. It was amazing that the common prayer started with thanksgiving for the gifts that the church (in the singular!) received from the Reformation. What the church received was explained with a long quotation from From Conflict to Communion and brought before God in prayer. This is quite different from the attitude ten years ago when it was often said, “There is nothing to celebrate in 2017”. Looking back in lamentation about and confession of the failures of the past and our own shortcomings involved a detailed description of the failures of the past. This led to a prayer with three parts: first, lamentation over good reforms that unfortunately had bad consequences; second, acknowledgment of the failures of our forebears; and third, the confession of our own present-day sins. Pope Francis said: “We bring before you the burdens of the guilt of the past when our forebears did not follow your will that all be one in the truth of the gospel”9. This prayer service was remarkable in many respects. It was remarkable from the Lutheran side. The Lutherans did not prepare the central worship service at the beginning of the Reformation year on their own, only later to invite their ecumenical counterparts – the Reformed, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Mennonites, and Pentecostals – as equal partners. Rather, the Lutherans prepared this service jointly with Roman Catholics 8. Common Prayer for the Ecumenical Commemoration, Lund, Sweden, October 31, 2016, as an addendum to From Conflict to Communion (n. 6), p. 136. 9. Ibid., p. 139.

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and both churches together invited all the others. This was a clear sign that the Lutherans took seriously the fact that the Reformers did not wish to create a new church. This service is the Lutheran World Federation’s answer to a sharp question from Cardinal Koch as to whether Lutherans see the Reformation as “the decisive break with the past, or as a development in fundamental continuity with 1,500 years of Christian church history”10. The prayer service was also remarkable from the Catholic side. Pope Francis, whose predecessor Leo X had excommunicated Luther as filium iniquitatis, went to the Lutheran cathedral in Lund in order to commemorate together with Lutherans the Reformation 500 years ago. He dressed in the same way as the Lutheran leaders, with a white alb and a red stole. Red is the liturgical color for Reformation Sunday in Lutheran churches, but not the color for October 31 in the Catholic church. Thus Pope Francis came into the Lutheran cathedral wearing the liturgical color of the Lutheran church. This is highly remarkable. Finally, this prayer service was remarkable in that it was the liturgical reception of an ecumenical document, From Conflict to Communion. Many ecumenical documents have never been officially received. The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (henceforth: JDDJ) is an exception; it was received through a complex process of testing and finally approving the document. Lund presented a new form of reception: the liturgical reception of dialogue documents. Ecumenical dialogue paved the way to the common prayer, and this prayer service was the confirmation of the dialogue results. Through television and YouTube, a great number of Christians all over the world participated in or watched the Lund service. In many places of the world, similar services using the Lund liturgy were celebrated. The booklet From Conflict to Communion has by now been translated into 20 languages and is studied worldwide by Protestants and Catholics alike, often together. These are new ways of continued reception of ecumenical documents that deserve special attention. From an ecumenical point of view, one ought to be delighted and grateful that 500 years later the Reformation was commemorated in such an ecumenical spirit.

10. Cardinal K. KOCH, Progress in the Ecumenical Journey: The State of Ecumenism Today, in Information Service 135 (2010) 75-93, p. 83. This question will be taken up again below.

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II. ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE LUTHERAN – ROMAN CATHOLIC DIALOGUE This second part of this chapter looks into the future of the Lutheran – Roman Catholic dialogue, focusing on a concrete challenge and a concrete response. First a complex challenge will be addressed, the one that Cardinal Koch posed to the dialogue11, and second a response to this challenge, the Declaration on the Way12 from North America. 1. Cardinal Koch’s Challenge From the very beginning of his time as President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Koch has emphasized that there is no common understanding of the goal of Roman Catholic – Lutheran ecumenism, and he has correctly observed that the different concepts of the unity of the church depend on the different ecclesiologies of the churches. It “has become … a question of unprecedented urgency, particularly as it holds the key to resolving the main impasse in the actual ecumenical situation, that is, the fact that the various churches and ecclesial communities have not yet been able to reach a consensus on the goal of the ecumenical movement itself […] today our remaining differences can be traced back to the different confessional interpretations of what the unity of the Church itself means”13. Corresponding to the different ecclesiologies, the goal(s) of ecumenism is also controversial. On the Protestant side, there is the model of the Leuenberg Fellowship among the Protestant churches in Europe, which declares mutual recognition of churches as members of the Body of Christ and altar-and-pulpit-fellowship. The Cardinal is afraid that the Protestant churches might extend this model also to relations with the Catholic church, “so that there is the underlying implication that we Catholics ought to become Protestants in order to make further progress in ecumenism”14. And he comes to “the conclusion that the churches and ecclesial communities originating in the Reformation have abandoned 11. Ibid. See also P. DE MEY, The Commemoration of the Reformation as the Starting Point for a Joint Declaration on Church, Eucharist and Ministry?, in Ecclesiology 14 (2018) 32-50. 12. COMMITTEE ON ECUMENICAL AND INTERRELIGIOUS AFFAIRS, UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS – EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA, Declaration on the Way: Church, Ministry, and Eucharist, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 2015. 13. KOCH, Progress (n. 10), p. 82. 14. Ibid., p. 83.

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the original ecumenical goal of visible unity and have substituted it with the concept of mutual recognition as churches, which is already feasible”15. “We are faced today with two profoundly different attitudes: on the one hand, there is an ecumenism which continues to seek the visible unity of the church, working and praying for this unity; on the other, there is an ecumenism which considers that what has already been achieved is sufficient and is satisfied in maintaining the status quo, wishing to affirm through the practice of eucharistic communion and continuing, for all the rest, to live as separated churches”16. Lutherans should take very seriously the Cardinal’s criticism that Protestant churches have too easily adapted to the reality of separation and have lost sight of the unity of the church. Even though the reality of the Leuenberg Fellowship is different from Koch’s depiction, nevertheless the Cardinal touches on an especially difficult point. But Lutherans also have to raise a question to the Cardinal: Which understanding of visible unity does the Catholic Church have? This seems to be clear, but it is considerably less than clear. “The true goal of ecumenism, as often reiterated by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is… ‘the transformation of the plurality of the separate denominational churches into the plurality of local churches, which, in reality, form one Church’”17. But what does this mean and imply in detail? The Second Vatican Council recognized “elements of sanctification and truth”18 also outside the walls of the Catholic Church, and it recognized that the Holy Spirit does not refrain from using the ecclesial communities outside the Catholic Church as means of grace19. Lutherans are constantly assured that the Catholic Church does not promote “return ecumenism”. What then is the goal of the Roman Catholic ecumenism if it is visible unity but not return ecumenism? Which kind of visibility is envisaged, if visibility is not explained by means of Bellarmine’s three bonds: confession of the true faith, communion of the sacraments, and submission under the hierarchical government of the church, especially the pope? One cannot see a well-developed concept of that unity on the Catholic side. This needs to be emphasized quite clearly, for “visible unity” can and does have many different meanings. In a famous talk in Graz in 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid., p. 84. 17. Ibid., p. 83. The quote is taken from J. RATZINGER, Luther and the Unity of the Churches, in ID., Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Endeavours in Ecclesiology, San Francisco, CA, Ignatius Press, 2008, p. 119. 18. Lumen Gentium 8. 19. Unitatis Redintegratio 3.

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1976, the then-cardinal Ratzinger stated: “Rome does not need to require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of Papacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium”20. Here, imposing the dogmas of Vatican I on the Orthodox churches is not required as means of visible unity, as has been done by other theologians. In that talk, Ratzinger discussed “maximalist” and “minimalist” requests to the ecumenical partner21. Lutherans need an answer to what Rome expects from them on the journey to a communion of local churches, while Rome needs an answer from Lutherans on how they understand the church and its unity. The Second Vatican Council opened the door of the Catholic Church to the ecumenical movement, but one gets the impression that it did not open fully but got blocked half-way. In fact, the famous “subsistit” of Lumen Gentium 8 does both. It is not yet the solution for the ecumenical problem, but an indication of the problem to be solved. It must be emphasized that Lutheran churches should be prepared for internal reforms in order to deepen and extend the communion and unity with the Roman Catholic church, but this need applies to the Catholic church also. We have not yet seen a Catholic model of the ecumenical goal that takes Lutheran concerns fully into account. And we do not yet have a Lutheran model that takes Catholic concerns fully into account. Only when we find such a model can we speak of an alternative between searching for visible communion and accepting the status quo, as the Cardinal said. In order to identify a common goal for the ecumenical journey, the Cardinal has constantly admonished that the topic of the understanding of the church should be the central topic of Catholic-Lutheran dialogue. This is astonishing, to a certain degree, because the Roman Catholic – Lutheran dialogue has produced two major ecclesiological documents: Church and Justification22 and The Apostolicity of the Church23. They demonstrate a certain progress towards a common understanding of the church, but also some limits to consensus. In his Prolusio of 2010, previously mentioned, Cardinal Koch does not refer to these two reports at 20. J. RATZINGER, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, San Francisco, CA, Ignatius Press, 1987, p. 198 (translation altered). 21. Ibid., pp. 197f.; 202f. 22. JOINT ROMAN CATHOLIC – EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN COMMISSION (ed.), Church and Justification: Understanding the Church in the Light of the Doctrine of Justification, in J. GROS – H. MEYER – W.G. RUSCH (eds.), Growth in Agreement II, Geneva, WCC Publications; Grand Rapids, MI – Cambridge, Eerdmans, 2000, 485-565. 23. LUTHERAN – ROMAN CATHOLIC COMMISSION ON UNITY, The Apostolicity of the Church, in T.F. BEST et al. (eds.), Growth in Agreement IV/1, Geneva, WCC Publications, 2017, 169-266.

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all. Thus it is difficult to say whether he thinks that these two documents do not address the questions he raises, or whether they simply do not do this properly in his view. In any event, it does not seem to be realistic to expect a joint declaration on the Church in the near future, if there is such a basic difference between Protestant and Catholic ecclesiologies. It may be helpful to think about which topics should be dealt with in a common declaration on the Church. In his presentation, Cardinal Koch identifies at least four basic differences, stating: “These ecclesiological questions should be at the heart of the ecumenical dialogue with the churches and ecclesial communities originating in the Reformation”24. The first difference that the Cardinal sees is the alternative between the Lutheran focus on the local congregation around pulpit and altar and the Catholic understanding of the universal church as communio ecclesiarum. “In fact, the ecclesiology of the Reformation pivots around the concrete local community, as is clear in the writings of Luther himself”25. Indeed, Luther emphasizes that the congregation that hears the preached Word of God and receives the sacraments – the means of grace – is church, but precisely because this is so, he does not limit the church to the local congregation. In his translation of the New Testament, he always renders the word ekklesia by Gemeinde. But in Luther’s time, Gemeinde did not only mean a local congregation, as we can see in his translation of the Old Testament. Here he speaks of, for example, “die ganze Gemeinde der Kinder Israel” (Ex 35,1) or “die ganze Gemeinde machte einen Bund” (2 Chr 23,3). When article VII of the Augsburg Confession states “It is also taught that at all times there must be and remain one holy, Christian church. It is the assembly of all believers …”26, the church universal is meant. In his explanation of the third article of the Creed, Luther answers the question of how someone becomes holy: “In the first place, he [God] has a unique community [= Gemeinde] in the world, which is the mother that begets and bears every Christian through the Word of God”27. Nevertheless, one should admit on the Lutheran side that the relations between the local congregation, the regional community (in Germany this would be the Landeskirche), the Lutheran 24. KOCH, Progress (n. 10), p. 81. 25. Ibid., p. 80. 26. R. KOLB – T. WENGERT (eds.), The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 2000, p. 42 (emphasis added). 27. Ibid., p. 436. Joseph Ratzinger shares the same misunderstanding. See for a discussion: Th. DIETER, Die Eucharistische Ekklesiologie Joseph Ratzingers – eine lutherische Perspektive, in C. SCHALLER (ed.), Kirche – Sakrament und Gemeinschaft: Zu Ekklesiologie und Ökumene bei Joseph Ratzinger, Regensburg, Pustet, 2011, 276-316, pp. 288299.

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church in a certain country (such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), and the universal church – that is, the understanding of the communio ecclesiarum – is not very well developed, neither theologically nor institutionally. But as the contemporary debates about the role of episcopal conferences show, one might doubt whether the communio ecclesiarum within the Catholic Church has been theologically sufficiently elaborated and properly realized in practice, either. Even though several aspects of this problem have already been addressed in Church and Justification and The Apostolicity of the Church, it is clear that substantial theological work both within and between the two communities is required in order to answer the question that the cardinal poses in this way: “There emerges the difficult ecumenical question of how to relate Catholic ecclesiology with its dialectic between the plurality of the local Churches and the unity of the universal Church, and Protestant ecclesiology which sees the concrete community as the most authentic realisation of the Church and of how it may be possible to arrive at substantial consensus on the issue”28. The second topic to be addressed, according to the cardinal, is the sacramentality of the church. While “the churches and ecclesial communities deriving from the Reformation” understand themselves as “primarily an assembly of people professing the same faith”, the Catholic church has a clearly sacramental ecclesiology, according to which the church “is a sacramental foundation instituted in the Last Supper Room which is realised in every eucharistic celebration”29. The Cardinal even goes so far as to speak of “the absolute separation, by Protestants, of the sacramental sign and its author … it is inconceivable in Catholic ecclesiology that such a separation between Jesus Christ and the Church should exist precisely in the eucharist”30. Koch speaks of Protestants, but Lutherans will in no way recognize themselves in this portrait. Luther’s insistence on the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Lord’s Supper and the Augsburg Confession’s emphasis on the bodily word as the means through which the Holy Spirit is present both contradict such an understanding31. Lumen Gentium 1 does not call the Church a sacrament; rather, it says, the Church is “like a sacrament” (veluti sacramentum), thus developing further the concept of the seven sacraments with respect to the church. If “sacramentality” means the intimate union of the spiritual and external 28. KOCH, Progress (n. 10), p. 81. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. KOLB – WENGERT, Book of Concord (n. 26), pp. 40f. (art. V). See also The Apostolicity of the Church (n. 23), §§ 207-210.

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aspects of the church and the performative character of the external word in the power of the Holy Spirit, including baptism, penance, and the Lord’s Supper, then Luther’s understanding of the church is deeply sacramental, even though his understanding differs from the Catholic one. But in the Catholic-Lutheran dialogue on the church the alternative is not between a sacramental and a non-sacramental understanding of the Church, but on the respective understandings of sacramentality. In this respect, the dialogues have already found much common ground. The third topic that the Cardinal mentions is the understanding of the Word of God in relation to the Church. He assumes that Protestant theology “understands the Word of God as a reality that can be known independently and self-sufficiently with respect to the Church, and that can act as independent corrective for the ministry”. With the words of Joseph Ratzinger, it “‘consider[s] the Word as being quasi-hypostatic and self-sufficient with respect to the Church’”, whereas “the Catholic Church … recognises the apostolic ministry as a third criteria for the Church”, or, again quoting Ratzinger, “conceives the Word as living ‘in the Church, just as the Church lives in the Word – in mutual dependence and relation’”32. In this regard one thinks immediately of the great engagement of the reformers to translate the Bible so that as many people as possible could read it, advising believers to read according to the pattern of oratio, meditatio, and tentatio33; of the composition of Catechisms consisting of the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer as a way of learning the Bible daily, both in the family and in the church; of the strong emphasis on preaching the Word of God in every worship service; and of the composition of hymns as a way to sing the psalms and other biblical texts into the hearts of people. Indeed, for Lutherans, the Church lives in the Word and the Word lives in the church, and because it has a constructive function it also has a critical one. What else would it mean that it is the Word that lives in the church? It may be enlightening that Joseph Ratzinger in his commentary on the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum 9 makes this comment: “One should admit that the explicit mentioning of the possibility of distorting tradition and emphasizing the Scripture as also an element of criticism of tradition in the midst of the church are practically missing [in Dei Verbum]. Thus according to the lessons of history a highly important aspect of the 32. KOCH, Progress (n. 10), p. 81. The quotes are from J. RATZINGER, Das geistliche Amt und die Einheit der Kirche, in ID., Das neue Volk Gottes: Entwürfe zur Ekklesiologie, Düsseldorf, Patmos, 1969, 105-129, p. 106. 33. See LW 34, 284-288.

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problem of tradition, perhaps just the starting point for the question of the ecclesia semper reformanda, has been bypassed. Here, especially a council that understood itself as a council of reform and thus admitted the possibility and reality of distorting tradition, could have realized an essential part of its own theological foundation and its intention in a reflective way. That this was neglected can only be called a regrettable gap”34. The document The Apostolicity of the Church discusses the topic of Scripture and tradition, the presence of the Word of God, and the teaching office in some detail35. A fourth topic that Cardinal Koch wishes to be discussed is the selfunderstanding of the Protestant churches with respect to their relation to the history of the Church and to modernity. “It would be useful in the dialogue to have a response on the part of Protestants regarding the way in which … the Reformation is self-defined: either as a countdown to modern times and the rising star of modernity, insofar as it represented the decisive break with the past, or as a development in fundamental continuity with 1,500 years of Christian church history”36. The relationship of Lutheran churches worldwide to the history of the Church and to modernity is such a complex question that it seems to be impossible to choose one of these sharp two alternatives. One may have a short look at the Catholic debates on how to understand the relationship of the Second Vatican Council to the history of the Church: Was it a break from the previous teaching of the Church? Or was it in full continuity with it? Or should one apply a hermeneutics of reform? Such questions are so general that the debates on them seem not to be very fruitful; rather, it is more promising to discuss specific questions with respect to continuity or change. Nevertheless, the Cardinal touches on a problem of the Catholic-Lutheran dialogue: this dialogue has constantly referred to the confessional writings of the Lutheran churches as their point of reference. Nevertheless, certain manifestations of modern Protestantism have deviated from these doctrinal positions in some aspects. But “Protestantism” is not a dialogue partner, the Lutheran churches are dialogue partners, and one has to distinguish between their doctrine and different theologies interpreting the churches’ doctrines, not to mention other Protestant churches. Nevertheless, one might ask how strong the authority of the confessional writings is in the Lutheran churches, but one might equally

34. Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 2nd ed., vol. 13: Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil, part II, pp. 524f. (my translation). 35. The Apostolicity of the Church (n. 23), §§ 355-460. 36. KOCH, Progress (n. 10), p. 81.

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ask the Catholic church to what extent its Catechism or councils are observed within, too. Lutherans are often irritated by the intensity of hatred directed against Pope Francis by many Catholics who claim to defend the doctrine of the Catholic church, even cardinals, sometimes using words that resemble Luther’s harsh criticism of the pope, which many Lutherans nowadays deeply deplore! The best answer to the cardinal’s request seems to be to follow the lines of the first of the five ecumenical imperatives mentioned in From Conflict to Communion: “Catholics and Lutherans should always begin from the perspective of unity and not from the point of view of division in order to strengthen what is held in common even though the differences are more easily seen and experienced”37. In this respect, the statement mentioned above by the former German bishop, Wolfgang Huber, may be helpful: The churches of the Reformation (“die evangelischen Kirchen”) are “the Catholic church that went through the Reformation”38. Discussing the four topics that Cardinal Koch mentions shows which areas of work lie ahead for the Catholic-Lutheran dialogue, but in this respect their first task is to jointly harvest the fruits of the previous dialogues on the topic of church and ministry39, that is, to critically assess what has been identified as common, to evaluate the differences, to raise the question of whether a different perspective on the controversial topics could be developed, and also to ask which changes in our respective self-understanding would be needed and possible in order to broaden the common understanding of how the church is to be understood. Also the overall situation in which the dialogue takes place should be taken into consideration. With all due respect, one may ask what Pope Francis’s constant criticism of “clericalism” means for the dialogue on the ecclesial ministry. Even having in mind the anti-Donatist decision of the early Church, one might raise the question of how it influences the dialogue on ministry when a Catholic archbishop has said, with respect to the sexual abuse crisis, “Pope Francis knows more than probably anyone else in Rome that the crisis of the Church is in its center a crisis of the clergy, and that now the hour of the self-confident lay people has struck”40? 37. LUTHERAN – ROMAN CATHOLIC COMMISSION ON UNITY, From Conflict to Communion (n. 6), p. 87 (§ 239). 38. HUBER, Überlegungen zum Stand der Ökumene (n. 5). 39. Walter Cardinal KASPER offered a harvesting from the Roman Catholic side: Harvesting the Fruits: Basic Aspects of Christian Faith in Ecumenical Dialogue, London – New York, Continuum, 2000. 40. G. GÄNSWEIN, Wir haben eine Krise des Klerus: Darum hat nun die Stunde des souveränen Laien geschlagen, in Vatican Magazin 12 (2018), no. 10, 36-43, p. 41 (my translation).

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Further dialogue should be conducted in a spirit of bearing one another’s burdens (Gal 6,2), suffering and rejoicing with the other members of the body of Christ (1 Cor 12,26), and asking jointly and self-critically for ways of mutually acknowledging the service of the others’ ministry that is done in the power of the Holy Spirit. 2. The American “Declaration on the Way” An American Catholic-Lutheran task force took up the challenge by Cardinal Koch. They studied the major Catholic-Lutheran documents dealing with church, ministry, and the Eucharist. Finally they produced the document already mentioned, Declaration on the Way41. It contains 32 agreements on the three topics of Church, ministry, and Eucharist, careful documentation that supports their theses, and a differentiated section about remaining differences and proposals to overcome them. It is the wish of the task force that the agreements should be studied by the Catholic church and the Lutheran churches worldwide with the aim of officially receiving them. These agreements do not represent a full consensus since there are still questions that can not yet be solved, but through the agreements the Declaration intends to identify and summarize the agreed positions that the dialogues have achieved with the intention of making them official statements. The idea of in via-declarations was brought up by Harding Meyer, former director of the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Strasbourg42. He was very much concerned that the results of many dialogues had not been officially received by the churches, and he was afraid that this would lead to a tiredness with respect to dialogues and an unwillingness to look for consensus, in short, that dialogue would come to a standstill. Since not all dialogues have achieved a full consensus on their respective topics, he called for in via-declarations that would describe in a short text the consensus as far as it has been achieved, ask the churches involved for official approval, and identify areas for further dialogue. Ecumenical documents as such have the authority only of the commission and its arguments. Thus it is important for further ecumenical progress that the findings of these commissions are officially received by the churches. The American Declaration on the Way is the first example for such an in via-declaration and thus deserves special attention. 41. See n. 12. 42. H. MEYER, Stillstand oder neuer Kairos? Zur Zukunft des evangelisch/katholischen Dialogs, in ID., Versöhnte Verschiedenheit: Aufsätze zur ökumenischen Theologie, vol. III, Frankfurt a.M., Lembeck; Paderborn, Bonifatius, 2009, 132-144.

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Since there is the wish of the American team that the Declaration should be discussed worldwide, it may be useful to take into consideration the lessons that one could learn in the process that led to the official signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in Augsburg in 199943. When this process began, nobody had any experience in arriving at doctrinal agreement between the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church, an agreement that was meant to be officially received by both parties and thus become part of their doctrine. It was not an experiment in the laboratory of ecumenical dialogues and the restricted area of academic research; rather, it was a large-scale experiment in churches worldwide and partly also in the public space. I would like to identify five major lessons that we learned. First: Searching for greater unity between two communities that have been traditionally in conflict with each other often creates disunity within the respective communities. This is a tragic dialectic in looking for peace and reconciliation. A certain number of members of each community are convinced that the separation should continue, and that there are no good reasons to move towards overcoming the split. One can experience this attitude in the political realm when it comes to peace making, but we observe it in processes of ecumenical rapprochement, too. For as long as people are used to determining their community’s identity by opposition to another community, looking for agreements between the communities seems to endanger their own identity. The feeling that one’s identity is at stake can unleash huge polemical energies. Thus, before starting a worldwide process of rapprochement or reconciliation with the aim of official decisions, one should carefully evaluate whether the intended goal can be reached or whether the attempt to achieve greater unity might inadvertently lead to greater disunity. This is not a sign of ecumenical pessimism, but takes up Jesus’ practical wisdom in Luke 14,28-30: “Which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish’”.

43. See Th. DIETER, Vom Projekt “Lehrverurteilungen–kirchentrennend?” zur “Gemeinsamen Erklärung zur Rechtfertigungslehre”, in A. BIRMELÉ – W. THÖNISSEN (eds.), Auf dem Weg zur Gemeinschaft: 50 Jahre internationaler evangelisch-lutherisch/ römisch-katholischer Dialog: Theodor Dieter zum 65. Geburtstag, Paderborn, Bonifatius; Leipzig, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2018, 119-141.

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Second: In most cases, those who are to judge the reception of ecumenical agreements have not been involved in the learning process of the dialogues. Thus they tend to hold positions that were widespread before the dialogues were undertaken. They feel the obligation to safeguard the identity of their church’s teaching as it had been understood for a long time. Short ecumenical texts cannot effectively communicate the extended learning process of the dialogues. Those people will react to such a text on the basis of their traditional understanding, and therefore probably not very sympathetically. Thus it should be explored in advance how such resistance might be overcome, and the documents of agreement should be drafted in such a way as to anticipate such objections and attempt to respond to them. Third: If churches are asked worldwide to agree with an ecumenical text, they must have the opportunity to propose changes in the text presented to them. Otherwise they may reject the text only because they disagree with certain sentences, which otherwise could have been easily changed or improved. JDDJ met this challenge; through the reactions of the churches, the drafting commission changed the first text so that its final version was different from the first draft. It would even be wise to send a draft of a potential agreement to churches that have the habit of making comments on ecumenical texts and take up their responses by revising the draft before any official release of the text. The churches should be able to see themselves as becoming the owners of the agreement and not only those who have to agree (or refuse to agree) with a text presented to them by others without their own participation. Fourth: It has become clear that the realm of theological education in theological seminaries and university faculties, on the one hand, and the realm of ecumenical dialogues, on the other, have unfortunately become separated. Theological faculties seldom follow ecumenical debates, with a few laudable exceptions, such as the KU Leuven. Yet professors will raise their voices as soon as the process of approving the agreements in the churches has begun, even if they are mostly unaware of ecumenical dialogue. Thus it is important to include theological teachers at an early stage in preliminary informal discussions on the topics of the proposed agreement in order to ask them for their comments, to take their objections seriously, and to involve them in the whole process. Fifth: There should not be any time pressure in the process, even though deadlines can be helpful. But pressure creates resistance. The process should be transparent and give equal opportunity to discuss the pros and cons in the public space within the churches or without.

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Having these lessons in mind, seven concerns will be addressed with respect to the Declaration on the Way from North America. At the end of that Declaration (“V. Next Steps on the Way”) there is a recommendation to the Lutheran World Federation and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity that they “together receive, affirm, and create a process to implement consequences of the 32 ‘Statements of Agreement on Church, Ministry and Eucharist’ in section 2 of Declaration on the Way: Church, Ministry and Eucharist”44. Speaking of receiving and affirming the 32 statements creates the impression that the modification of these statements is not anticipated or even foreseen; rather, it is expected that they will simply be approved by the Lutheran churches and the Roman Catholic church without further discussion. Recalling the many weighty requests from the Catholic and the Lutheran sides to alter the first draft of JDDJ, one may seriously doubt whether the present request will be taken up favorably. If the text is meant to be received worldwide, there must exist the possibility to discuss and change the text before any Church will make an official decision about it. Thus it does not seem to have been wise that the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America already approved the text45. This is a procedural concern. If any Declaration on the Way, whatever its content and format may be, is meant to be officially accepted worldwide, the agents to promote such a declaration should be the corresponding worldwide bodies, namely the Lutheran World Federation and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. A declaration coming from one country or continent can only be a proposal for a declaration, and there must be a possibility of modifying it in response to global input. This is a basic lesson from the JDDJ process. The two institutions will have to examine a concrete proposal carefully; they will also have to reflect and decide whether the time is ripe to send the text of such a declaration to the churches for discussion and finally for approval, taking also the other lessons of the 44. Declaration on the Way (n. 12), p. 121. In what follows, parentheses with numbers in the text indicate the page of this Declaration. See also for comments on the Declaration: W.G. RUSCH, Declaration on the Way: Church, Ministry and Eucharist: Quo Vadis?, in Ecumenical Trends 45 (2016), no. 5, 1-5.14f.; C.D. WASHBURN, Doctrine, Ecumenical Progress, and Problems with Declaration on the Way: Church, Ministry, and Eucharist, in Pro Ecclesia 26 (2017), no. 1, 59-80; Position Paper of the Ecumenical Studies Committee of the German National Committee of the Lutheran World Federation on the American Document “Declaration on the Way: Church, Ministry, and Eucharist” (https:// www.dnk-lwb.de/de/content/position-paper-ecumenical-studies-committee-americandocument-declaration-way-church; visited October 6, 2018). 45. See https://www.elca.org/News-and-Events/7848 (visited October 6, 2018).

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process into consideration. One major question will be whether the Roman Magisterium, especially the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, will be prepared to cooperate not only critically but also constructively in such a process. A second concern: That ELCA Assembly did not only approve the 32 statements; rather, as the press release states, “the assembly overwhelmingly accepted the Declaration on the Way, a unique ecumenical document that marks a path toward greater unity between Catholics and Lutherans”46. Now, what are the churches asked to affirm according to the self-understanding of the Declaration on the Way? The whole document or only the 32 agreements? This question calls for a closer look at the form of the document. The Declaration is a document of 124 pages. After an introductory section (pp. 1-7), part II (“Statement of Agreements”; pp. 9-15) presents 32 agreements on seven pages. Part III (“Agreements in the LutheranRoman Catholic Dialogues – Elaborated and Documented”; pp. 17-72) is the longest chapter of the document. It “sets forth findings of the Lutheran – Roman Catholic dialogues that explain and justify the agreements stated concisely in the previous section” (p. 17), but it also offers short explanations of the theses and indications of the problems the agreements claim to overcome. Now it becomes clear for the first time which conflicts lie behind some of the theses. Without taking chapter III into consideration, the agreements give answers to questions or conflicts that are not mentioned. But not every thesis refers to a traditional conflict. There are different situations behind the various theses. The Council of Trent, for example, does not express condemnations concerning ecclesiology, whereas it has a considerable number of condemnations concerning the ministry and Eucharist47. Thus, it is quite a different situation whether a consensus on ministry and Eucharist is to be established, which has to overcome those doctrinal condemnations, from a consensus in ecclesiology, in which it is not yet clear what exactly would need to be said. There does not seem to be an awareness of this difference anywhere in the document. This might be the reason for the very strange formulation of what receiving the 32 agreements means: Such a reception “recognizes that there are no longer church-dividing differences with respect to these statements” (pp. 121f.) Saying that with respect to agreements there are

46. Ibid. 47. DH 1731-1734 (Eucharistic communion), 1751-1759 (sacrifice of the/Mass), 17711778 (consecration). See K. LEHMANN – W. PANNENBERG (eds.), The Condemnations of the Reformation Era: Do They Still Divide?, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 1990, pp. 84-117.

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no church-dividing differences is tautological. In order for this judgment to make sense, one would need to present the different positions that were seen as church-dividing in the past. Ecumenical progress is achieved if it can be demonstrated that the conflicting positions of two churches no longer need to be regarded as church-dividing if both sides agree with certain statements. This is how the JDDJ proceeded. It carefully described the two conflicting positions and indicated why they have no longer to be regarded as church-dividing. Only to state agreements and then to say that there is no longer a church-dividing difference with respect to them does not make any sense. In addition, several of the 32 statements have never been controversial (for example 1-3, 5-8, 10-12). Thus it is not appropriate to say that with respect to them there are no longer church-dividing differences. The problem of the relation between agreements and differences is even more serious. Part IV (“Remaining Differences and Reconciling Considerations”; pp. 73-119) “moves beyond the 32 affirmations of the Declaration and its documentation to consider certain unresolved matters” (73; italics added). Fifteen topics in the areas of Church, Eucharist, and ministry “represent doctrinal differences of varying gravity” (p. 73); they deal with “the Lutheran – Roman Catholic differences with divisive effects”, even though not “in a complete manner” (p. 73). It is problematic that the differences are not related to the agreements, such that it is not clear whether and how far the unresolved differences limit or impair the agreements. Chapter IV offers an excellent and impressive description of the church-dividing differences that need to be overcome, and, besides chapter III, it also indicates very well the progress the dialogues have made. Here we can find many fruits of the dialogues; thus it is a pity that these fruits were not comprehensively taken into the section of the agreements. Then one could see how far the dialogues have come in these questions – this would deserve to be acknowledged by the churches as part of the in via-declaration! – and what the dialogues still have to resolve. Now, there is, on the one hand, the section of agreements that are free of differences, and, on the other hand, the chapter with the remaining differences that belong to other aspects of the three areas of doctrine. While some of the 32 agreements can hardly be regarded as fruits of the dialogue, since they have been more or less uncontroversial, the progress made in those areas that have not been fully resolved is not appreciated strongly enough as belonging to the agreements, too, at least as partial agreements. With respect to several of the agreements it seems difficult to see where progress has been made, even though it is meaningful to explicitly state what Catholics and Lutherans have always held

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in common. The division within that Declaration on the Way between agreements (without differences) and remaining differences does not seem to be appropriate for a declaration on the way. Such a document calls for precisely relating agreements and differences. The question of the format of such a declaration is a fundamental question to be raised in this respect. Third concern: The fourth agreement states “that the church on earth is in every age apostolic, because it is founded upon the apostles’ witness to the gospel and it continuously professes the apostolic and evangelical faith while living by mandated practices handed on from the apostles. Thus, Lutherans and Catholics recognize in both their ecclesial communities the attribute of apostolicity grounded in their ongoing continuity in apostolic faith, teaching and practices” (p. 10). The last sentence is not easy to understand. It seems that this sentence does not only mean that the churches recognize their own apostolicity, but that they also mutually recognize the other ecclesial community’s apostolicity. “Apostolicity” here means precisely what the first sentence in this quote says. The document The Apostolicity of the Church has observed that there is a certain correspondence between what Luther calls the “notes of the church” (notae ecclesiae) through which a community can be identified as church, and the “elements of sanctification and truth” outside the Catholic Church of which Vatican II speaks48. This document concludes: “Today we therefore mutually recognize, at a fundamental level, the presence of apostolicity in our traditions. This recognition is not negated by the important differences still to be investigated”49. This document assumes different levels of apostolicity and their respective recognition. Agreement 4 of the Declaration has the phrase “living by mandated practices handed on from the apostles”. If the “mandated practices” include the handing-over of the apostolic tradition through bishops, understood as the successors of the apostles together with and under the successor of Peter, the pope, then there is a difference within the agreement between Lutherans and Catholics. This is precisely the problem and why The Apostolicity of the Church only speaks of recognition of the other community’s apostolicity “on a fundamental level”. This is an example of why it would have been good to connect directly the agreements and the remaining unresolved questions, because Lutherans and Catholics share quite a number of “mandated practices”, even though they differ in some of them. In this way, the progress achieved in the ecumenical dialogue 48. The Apostolicity of the Church (n. 23), § 158. 49. Ibid., § 160.

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is not presented in a differentiated way. The challenge of finding an agreement concerning the apostolicity of the Church consists of the different meanings of the word “apostolicity” in the different churches and how to find a common level of apostolicity that allows for its mutual recognition. A fourth concern: Do Catholics and Lutherans actually speak about the same thing in the agreements? If a Catholic and a Lutheran both read the “Agreements” about the “church”, does the word “church” in the minds of each refer to the same entity? Both may make the same statements about the Church, but is it the same entity that is signified by the subject term of the sentence, “church”, in both cases? A Lutheran may think of many different churches that together belong to the whole entity that he or she calls the body of Christ, while a Catholic may think of the church of the Creed that subsists in the community governed by bishops in communion with and under the pope. Thus, is it the same thing to which both Catholics and Lutherans refer when they speak the same sentences with the word “church” in them? This is not meant as criticism of the document, rather as the self-critical question: What are we ecumenists doing when we make such a Catholic-Lutheran statement? We should answer this question before we start a broad process of asking for reception of that document. Cardinal Kasper addresses the question in this way: After having explained the many agreements achieved in ecumenical dialogues about the church on hundred pages, he states in his Harvesting the Fruits: “Behind the many still unresolved individual questions can be identified one fundamental problem and one fundamental divergence in the understanding of the Church. This becomes clear when we not only ask: What is the Church? But also: Where is the Church and where is she realized in her fullness?”50. According to the Cardinal, Protestants see the church in communities around word and sacrament (CA VII), while Catholics claim that “the Church of Christ subsists in (subsistit in) the Catholic Church, i.e. the Church is concretely, fully, permanently and effectively realised in communion with the successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him”51. The Declaration on the Way raises the first but not the second question. A fifth concern refers to the status and significance of such in viadeclarations. They address a complex topic, but they focus on certain aspects and claim to have solved only some but not all differences. The problem with this approach is that a doctrinal topic is always a whole, so 50. KASPER, Harvesting the Fruits (n. 39), p. 153 (§ 78). 51. Ibid.

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isolating certain aspects of it is to a certain degree artificial. Several theologians object that such a procedure leads to a quantitative understanding of doctrinal topoi, regarding them or their different aspects as if they were building blocks. On the other hand, our mind is not able to grasp a complex reality in uno intuitu; rather, we have to proceed in a discursive way, step by step, element after element. Nevertheless, if one element of a complex reality is missing, the respective entity is not there or is there deficiently. It is difficult to say what has in fact been achieved if we agree in some but not all elements of a certain topic. One can get the impression that, on the Catholic side, when evaluating what has been ecumenically achieved there are two principles struggling with each other: On the one hand the metaphysical principle: “bonum est ex integra causa, malum est ex quocumque defectu”, an adage of PseudoDionysius Areopagita that Thomas Aquinas quotes several times 52 (“Something is good from an integral cause, but it is bad from any defect whatever”). If your arrow does not hit the mark, you have lost, even if you just barely missed it. The other principle is: If you agree on many elements, then you create the expectation that it is not impossible to go ahead, even though one or two elements are missing. The Declaration seems to have this in mind when it says: “This Declaration demonstrates that cumulatively the global and regional Lutheran-Catholic dialogues have made significant progress in resolving our differences on these three core doctrines [church, Eucharist, and Ministry]” (p. 2). In this case, one can relativize what is absent or different with respect to all that is held in common or with respect to the statement that the Holy Spirit uses different practices and institutional arrangements in order to create and sustain faith, love, and hope in people. The last principle has been the ecumenical one, but from the position of church doctrine, the first one seems to be applied when it comes to approving or rejecting a proposed ecumenical agreement. Therefore, as above, the request was made to the Catholic side to explain what in their perspective visible unity with respect to the three doctrines would require without calling for return ecumenism. As long as this is not clear, it is very difficult to evaluate what certain agreements might mean for the goal of achieving visible unity. A sixth concern is this: One might be afraid that the JDDJ could be confused with an in via-declaration. In both cases, there are remaining differences, but these differences have a completely different status. “The 52. See for example Summa Theologiae I/II, q. 18, a. 4 ad 3; q. 19, a. 6 ad 1; II/II, q. 79, a. 3 ad 4.

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understanding of the doctrine of justification set forth in this declaration [=JDDJ] shows that a consensus in basic truths of the doctrine of justification exists between Lutherans and Catholics. In light of this consensus the remaining differences of language, theological elaboration, and emphasis in the understanding of justification described in paragraphs 18 to 39 are acceptable”53. Thus JDDJ offers a differentiating consensus, i.e. a consensus in the content that includes differences in how this content is expressed. These differences do not call for further dialogue; they can remain and are acceptable. This is quite different from the unresolved differences in an in via-declaration. These differences need further work and dialogue; they should not remain, but be overcome. One should emphasize this difference between the two types of declarations as strongly as possible, since it is difficult for many people to accept a consensus that explicitly allows for differences. Some people also wish to diminish the achievement of the JDDJ by saying that there are still differences that call for further dialogue. Of course, there is always a need for ongoing theological reflection in all topics of theology, but the JDDJ is a document that definitively states that there are no churchdividing differences with respect to the doctrine of justification between Catholics and Lutherans. The seventh concern is again a procedural one. Would the synods and all the other decision-making bodies of the Lutheran churches be prepared to enter into a long, challenging, and conflictual debate on the proposed agreements if they knew that even the best possible reactions on their side would not lead to Eucharistic sharing? One might expect that the members of the decision-making bodies would say: “Why should we spend our time discussing these proposals even though no change will happen as a result?” If we speak of deepening the communion between churches through broadening doctrinal consensus, there should also be a possibility for the members of the churches to experience this growth in communion. We have not yet found good ways to allow for the deepening of the communion to be experienced. The ecumenical service in Lund was a wonderful but rare example of this. Even with respect to the seven concerns mentioned here, the North American Declaration on the Way is an excellent challenge to take up anew the task of receiving ecumenical documents officially. It is a timely 53. LUTHERAN WORLD FEDERATION – ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, in J. GROS – H. MEYER – W.G. RUSCH (eds.), Growth in Agreement II, Geneva, WCC Publications; Grand Rapids, MI – Cambridge, Eerdmans, 2000, § 40.

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challenge. Nevertheless, before writing such a document, we should find answers to the questions raised in this paper, taking the experience of the JDDJ process seriously. Any declaration should be an international project from the beginning. It can take up critically and constructively the American initiative of the Declaration on the Way, but since such a declaration is a new ecumenical format, one can expect that many conversations and dialogues will be needed before Catholics and Lutherans will be able to achieve another text that will be a breakthrough in terms of method, content, and procedure. But we should dedicate every effort to this project. If it were to succeed, it would be an excellent proof that the churches are indeed ecclesiae reformabiles. CONCLUSION At the beginning of the third millennium, many doubted whether a common ecumenical commemoration of the Reformation would be possible in 2017. Through thorough theological research, patient work in dialogue, and the commitment of church leaders, pastors and congregations to the unity of the church, this ecumenical commemoration has become a reality throughout the world. The widely shining sign of this is the joint Lutheran/Catholic worship service in Lund. The experience that this common commemoration became possible is a source of strength for the ecumenical challenges ahead. May the review of 2017 motivate us to tackle these tasks with creativity, patience, a sense of proportion and a profound trust in the Holy Spirit! Institute for Ecumenical Research 8, rue Gustave Klotz FR-67000 Strasbourg France [email protected]

Theodor DIETER

INDEX OF NAMES AAGAARD, A.M. 69 ACRES, A. 194 ADAMS, N. 314 AGAMBEN, G. 6, 308-311, 313, 317, 322 AICHELE, A. 153 A LAPIDE, C. 5, 211-235 A LASCO, J. 294-295 ALBERIGO, G. 346, 378 ALEXANDER V 400 ALEXANDER OF HALES 142 ALISON, J. 319 ALLEN, J.P. 114, 127-128 ALLEN, M. 100 ALLERT, C.D. 92 ALLMEN, J.-J. VON 245 ALLSOPP, M.E. 73 ALMEN, L.G. 249 ALONSO-SCHÖKEL, L. 86 ALVES, R. 71-72 AMBROSE CATHARINUS 146 AMBROSE OF MILAN 241 AMBROSE, G.P. 263 ANDERSON, B. 39 ANDERSON, F. 65, 69 ANDERSON, J. 54 ANGENENDT, A. 200 ANSELM OF CANTERBURY 5, 129, 250 ANTONINUS PIUS 33 AQUINAS, M. 63 AQUINAS, T. 112, 122, 127, 137, 142, 145, 181-182, 189-191, 194, 206, 210, 216-217, 223-225, 228, 241, 327, 379, 427, 461 AQUINO, M.P. 373 APPOLD, K.G. 156 ARCADIUS 33 AREND, S. 287 ARMINIUS, J. 154-156 ARMSTRONG, K. 125 ARMSTRONG, R. 300, 303 ARNER, N. 2, 75, 78 ARNOLD, M. 53, 54

ASCHOFF, H.-G. 288-289 ASHLEY, J.M. 318 ASSMANN, A. 440 ASTON, M. 203 ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA 18, 25 ATHENAGORAS I 68 AUBERT, P. 378 AUER, A. 73 AUERBACH, E. 224 AUGUSTIJN, C. 140-141, 143-144 AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO 16-18, 20-21, 23, 25, 30, 42, 122, 136, 153, 155, 191, 211, 217, 223, 225, 233, 241, 251, 337, 343, 345-346, 354, 358-359 AYO, N. 189-191 AZQUI, V.R. 372-373, 375 BABBIT, F.C. 219 BAC, M. 154 BACHMANN, E.T. 199 BACON, R. 223 BAIUS, M. (DE BAY, M.) 153 BAK, J.M. 35 BAKER, K. 224 BAKPESSI, C. (BISHOP OF SOKODÉ) 348 BALDOVIN, J.F. 351, 355 BALTHASAR, H.U. VON 61-62, 72, 213, 361 BÁÑEZ, D. 153-154, 156, 176 BARON, C.A. 2-3, 132 BARON, H.J. 55 BARTH, K. 3, 67-68, 111-112, 114117, 129-132, 315, 361 BARTHOLOMEW, C.G. 94, 102 BARTOLUS DE SAXOFERRATO 30 BARTOŠ, F.M. 398, 400 BATKA, L. 53, 56, 136 BATTLES, F.L. 293, 380 BAUCKHAM, R. 92 BAVINCK, H. 106 BAYALA, A. 347 BEAVER, D.C. 288-290 BEBBINGTON, D.W. 83

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BECK, A.J. 3, 53, 157 BECKER, J. 275, 276, 294-295, 303 BEINERT, W. 79 BELLARMINE, R. 144, 233, 446 BELLITTO, C.M. 19, 316 BELTING, H. 203 BENEDICT XIII 400 BENEDICT XV 84-85 BENEDICT XVI 63, 79-80, 91, 104, 307-310, 313, 343, 353, 371, 374 BENEDICTOW, O.J. 399 BENJAMIN, W. 314 BENOIT, P. 86 BERAN, J. 398, 409 BERKOUWER, G.C. 103, 238 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 136 BEST, T.F. 69, 447 BEYER, J. 285-286 BEZA, T. 299 BIEL, G. 137, 141-142, 199 BIERINGER, R. 98-99, 103, 105 BIESBROUCK, W. 2, 82, 93, 109 BILLINGS, J.T. 292 BIRD, M. 102 BIRMELÉ, A. 156, 454 BLANTON, W. 312 BLOESCH, D. 95-96 BÖCKLE, F. 73 BOERSMA, H. 62, 109 BOEVE, L. 99, 105, 253, 263-267, 308-309, 315, 318 BOFF, C. 72, 363 BOFF, L. 72, 319, 325-326, 363 BONAVENTURE 136, 142 BONHOEFFER, D. 62-63, 70 BONIFACE VIII 400 BONINO, J.M. 71-72, 422 BONINO, S.T. 154, 163 BONSOR, J.A. 113-114 BORDEYNE, P. 264, 266 BOSCH, H. 193, 196 BOUCHE, A.-M. 194 BOVELL, C. 92-93 BRAATEN, C.E. 137 BRADLEY, C.A. 31 BRAUN, J. 193 BRAUNISCH, R. 141 BRIGGS, C.A. 86-87, 229 BRIOLA, L. 323

BROSSEDER, J. 406 BROWE, P. 195 BROWN, A. 316 BROWN, C. 292 BROWN, F. 229 BROWN, R.E. 84, 89-91, 224 BROWN, S. 286, 324 BRÜNDL, J. 142 BRUNK, T.M. 263 BRUNNER, F.A. 191 BUCER, M. 40, 140-145, 155 BUCKLEY, M.J. 175 BÜNZ, E. 288 BUGNINI, A. 355 BULLOCK, M. 179 BULTMANN, R. 90 BURKARD, D. 154-155 BURKHARDT, J. 440 BURNS, P. 72, 187 BURRELL, D. 181-184 BURROWS, M.S. 14 BYLINA, S. 403 BYNE, A. 196 BYNUM, C.W. 196 CAI, Y. 154 CALDERWOOD, D. 296 CALVIN, J. 2, 34, 39, 53-58, 131, 140142, 144-145, 151, 155, 203-204, 207, 210, 223, 226, 229-235, 292294, 296, 298-299, 380 CAMERON, E. 296 CAMERON, J.K. 296-299 CAMPEGGIO, L. 139 CANISIUS, P. 204, 206-210 CANO, M. 370 CAPUTO, J. 6, 117, 125, 311-313, 320 CARPENTIER, R. 63 CARR, A. 373 CASTEEL, T.W. 151 CASTRO, E. 72 CAVADINI, J.C. 69 CHAPMAN, D. 416 CHAPMAN, M. 430 CHAPMAN, S. 102 CHAPPEL, J. 332 CHAPUT, C. 331 CHARLES V 138, 142, 145

INDEX OF NAMES

CHAUVET, L.-M. 5, 237, 239, 251, 253-264, 266-267 CHELCICKÝ, P. 405 CHEMNITZ, M. 151 CHENU, M.-D. 253 CHERTSEY, A. 203 CHESTER JORDAN, W. 31 CHEVROT, J. 194 CHIARI, I. 231 CHIBUKO, P.C. 341 CHILTON, B. 239 CHINCA, M. 35 CHRISTIANSON, G. 19 CHRISTIN, O. 203 CHUKWUMA OKOYE, J. 348 CLAFFEY, P. 371 CLANCHY, M.T. 32 CLARK, F. 216, 233 CLASEN, C.-P. 286 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 227 CLEMENT VII 400 CLIFFORD, C.E. 418 CODINA, V. 363-366 COKE, A.C. 231 COLBERG, K.M. 120 COLLINS, J.B. 191 COLLINS, P.M. 393 COLLINS, R. 84, 89 COLLINSON, P. 202 COMBLIN, J. 363 COMENIUS, J.A. 405 CONE, J. 72 CONFUCIUS 179 CONGAR, Y. 61, 64-65, 69, 71, 253, 314-315, 319, 329, 338, 340, 343, 353-354, 356, 361, 366, 381-382 CONTARINI, G. 142-143, 145, 155 COPPENS, J. 85-86 CORKERY, J. 371 COTTRET, M. 155 COUFAL, D. 401 COURTENAY, W.J. 199 CRAWFORD, J. 293, 294 CREHAN, J.H. 102 CREW, P.M. 202 CRICK, J. 30 CRIM, K.R. 68 CRISP, O.D. 98 CROCKETT, C. 126, 312

467

CROKEN, R.C. 198 CROWE, F.E. 418 CROWLEY, P.G. 392 CRUZ, J. 153 CUMMINGS, B. 19, 21, 27, 36 CUNNINGHAM, L. 69 CURRAN, C. 73 CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE 337, 343, 359, 389-390 DA FONSECA, P. 154 DAHILL, L.E. 413, 431-433 DAHOOD, M. 39 D’AILLY, P. 19 DALFERTH, I.U. 156-157 DALY, R.J. 195, 197-198, 237, 239 DANIEL, D. 56 DANIÉLOU, J. 61 DAUR, K.D. 16 DAVID, Z.V. 403, 406 DAVIE, G. 178 DAWSON, J. 296 D’COSTA, G. 101 DE AQUINO, M. 369 DEBACKER, A. 211 DE BAY, M. (BAIUS) 153 DECALUWE, M. 19 DECARTES, R. 177 DE DAMHOUDERE, J. 33 DEIFELT, W. 432 DEKKER, E. 154 DE KROON, M. 140-141, 143-144 DE LA DURANTAYE, L. 310 DE LA SOUJEOLE, B.-D. 328-329, 333, 336 DELHAYE, P. 72 DE LUBAC, H. 4, 61, 107, 162-163, 196, 341, 343 DE LUNA, P. 20 DE MEY, P. 9, 323, 445 DEMMER, K. 72 DE MOLINA, L. 153-154, 156, 176 DENAUX, A. 417 DERRIDA, J. 308, 321 DE SANTA ANA, J. 72 DE SOTO, D. 148 DE SMEDT, E.J. 378 DETTLOFF, W. 137, 148 DE VEGA, A. 146, 148

468

INDEX OF NAMES

DE VOOGHT, P. 28 DEYON, S. 202 DICKINSON, C. 6, 311, 321 DIETER, T. 8-9, 137, 156, 448, 454, 464 DINGEL, I. 53, 56, 136, 140 DIOCLETIAN 33 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE 122, 461 DIOP, A. 337 DIXON, C.S. 278, 289-291 DOBIAS, F. 404 DOMBART, B. 19 DONALDSON, G. 299 D’ONOFRIO, G. 13, 15, 24 DOOGUE, E. 324 DORAN, R. 333-335 DORIEN, G. 130 DOUGLAS, M. 220-221 DOUTHAT, R. 331-333, 336 DOWEY, E. 67 DREHER, R. 330-333, 336 DRIEDO, J. 22, 27 DRIVER, S.R. 229 DUFF, P. 239 DUFFY, E. 288-290 DUKA, D. 403 DULLES, A. 427 DUMOUTET, E. 195 DUNSTAN, G.R. 74 DUPUIS, J. 364 DURAND, W. 192-194, 197 DUSSEL, E. 369 DYCH, W.V. 67, 164

EAGLESON, J. 71 EBELING, G. 136 EBERLEIN, P. 38, 49, 53, 58 EBOUSSI BOULAGA, F.E. 337-339 ECK, J. 138-143, 156, 198 EDROZAIN, D. 305 EDWARD I 32 EDWARD II 32 EDWARD VI 294 EDWARDS, J. 82 EGAN, J. 371 EIRE, C. 203, 313, 317 EKROLL, Ø. 289 ELA, J.-M. 338, 343 ELSBERND, M. 103

EMPIE, P.C. 244 ENNS, P. 92, 102-103 ERASMUS, D. 22, 27-28, 203, 229, 232 ERB, P. 38, 57 ERMECKE, G. 72 ERNST, C. 328 ESTIUS, G. (VAN EST, W.H.) 153-154, 156 ETSOU, F. 342 FABISCH, P. 198 FABRY, H.-J. 219 FAGAN, S. 66 FAGERBERG, D.W. 255 FAGGIOLI, M. 351 FAHEY, M. 393 FALKENBURG, R. 196 FARE, W. 144 FARKASFALVY, D. 90, 94-95, 102, 104, 107 FARLEY, M. 319 FARRUGIA, M. 310 FASZER-MCMAHON, D. 323 FERRARI, M.C. 288 FERREIRA, V.P. 364 FERGUSSON, D.A.S. 117 FIALOVA, L. 400 FILSER, H. 207 FINCH, K. 418 FISCHER, B. 5, 229, 232, 236 FISCHER, J. 27 FISCHER, R.H. 433 FISHER, R.B. 347 FITZMYER, J. 76, 84, 223 FLANAGIN, D.Z. 14, 19 FLANNERY, A. 66-67, 348, 382 FLEISCHMANN, A. 154 FLOROVSKY, G. 368 FLYNN, G. 62, 344 FLYNN, S. 91, 104-105 FODOR, J. 96 FÖRSTL, M. 400 FOLEY, E. 194 FOUCAULT, M. 316 FRANCIS (POPE) 7-8, 59, 77, 316, 321, 331, 338-340, 342, 350-352, 355-358, 361-362, 366, 370, 382, 386-388, 391, 393, 399, 410, 411, 426, 431, 434-435, 443, 452

INDEX OF NAMES

FRANCIS OF ASSISI 400, 412 FRANÇOIS, W. 1, 4, 8, 36, 153-155, 223, 229, 232 FRANCK, S. 40, 227 FRANKENBERRY, N. 117 FRECHT, M. 40 FREDDOSO, A.J. 153 FRIEDLÄNDER, M. 194 FRIEDRICH, H.-V. 380 FRIES, T. 253 FROMONDUS, L. 154 FUCHS, J. 73 FUDGE, T.A. 397, 405 FURCHA, E. 37 GADAMER, H.-G. 374, 423 GÄNSWEIN, G. 452 GAFFNEY, P.D. 69 GAILLARDETZ, R. 327 GALDOS, R. 212 GANOCZY, A. 142 GANZER, K. 140-142, 144-145 GARRET, S.M. 102 GATZ, E. 288 GAUTAMA BUDDHA 179 GEISSLER, H. 384 GELTNER, G. 31 GÉNY, F. 31 GEORGE, T. 275 GERACE, A. 146, 232 GERHARD, E.S. 38 GERSON, J. 1, 13-22, 24, 26-27, 29, 223, 292 GESCHWANDTNER, C.M. 126 GIELIS, M. 21-22, 27 GILES OF ROME 223 GILLEMAN, G. 63 GIRARD, R. 239 GLEASON, E.G. 142, 145 GLEN-DOEPEL, W. 64, 318 GLOCKNER, H. 136 GLORIE, F. 23 GLORIEUX, P. 14-20 GODZIEBA, A.J. 120, 327 GOERTZ, H.-J. 286, 291 GÖTTLER, C. 194 GOHEEN, M.W. 94, 98, 106 GOLLWITZER, H. 115-116 GOMARUS, F. 154, 156

469

GONZALEZ-AYESTA, C. 154 GOODALE, J. 291 GORDON, B. 153 GORMANS, A. 196 GOUDRIAAN, A. 155 GOULDBOURNE, R. 38 GOURON, A. 32 GRABMEIER, J. 384 GRAHAM, E. 277 GRAHAM, M. 296, 298-301 GRANADOS, C. 98 GRANADOS, J. 98 GRANT, S. 181-182 GRAY, E.F. 289-290 GRAYSON, J.C. 14 GREEN, B. 63 GREEN, D.H. 35 GREER, R. 213 GREGORY XII 400 GREGORY, B.S. 174 GRELL, O.P. 288 GRENZ, S.J. 92, 98 GRILLMEIER, A. 91, 325 GRISANTI, M.A. 93 GROPPER, J. 140-144, 155 GROS, J. 462 GROSSETESTE, R. 223 GROTIUS, H. 228 GRUDEM, W. 97 GUARINO, T. 130 GUNDRY, R.H. 92 GUNKEL, H. 39 GUREVICH, A. 35 GUTIÉRREZ, G. 68, 70-72, 77, 319, 329, 361, 368 HABERKERN, P. 397 HÄRING, B. 68-72, 77 HAHN, S.W. 80, 103 HAIGH, C. 288, 304 HAIGH, R. 364 HALLENSLEBEN, B. 139 HALLING, E. 13 HAMBURGER, J.F. 194 HAMEL, J. 153 HAMER, J. 326 HAMM, B. 288 HAMPSON, D. 155 HANSON, M.Z. 201

470 HARPER, J. 197 HARRINGTON, W. 66 HARRISON, B.W. 89 HART, K. 321 HARTRANFT, C.D. 39 HASCHKE, D.M. 390 HAUDE, S. 286 HAUERWAS, S. 331, 333 HEAL, B. 288, 305 HEALY, M. 102, 107 HEALY, N.J., JR. 162 HECKEL, U. 276 HEFLING, C. 326 HEGEL, G.W.F. 122, 136 HEIDEGGER, M. 122, 314, 374 HEINDL, W.K. 373 HENNELLY, A.T. 77 HENRY, C.F.H. 95-96 HENRY III 32 HERACLITUS 367 HERMANN, E.H. 198 HERMANO, R. 362 HERVIEU-LÉGER, D. 178 HESBURGH, T. 68-69, 78 HESCHEL, A.J. 319-320 HESHUSIUS, T. 283 HESSELINK, I.J. 292 HIGTON, M. 96 HILL, K. 286 HILLEBERT, J. 163 HILPERT, K. 72 HINZE, B.E. 393 HIPPOLYTUS OF ROME 239 HITCHEN, P. 416 HITLER, A. 116 HITTINGER, R. 74 HOBSBAWM, E. 28-29 HODGE, A. 86-87 HOELZL, M. 317 HOLETON, D.R. 403, 406 HOLL, K. 136 HOLLAND, J. 63 HOLLINGSWORTH, P.A. 35 HOLMES, J. 62 HOLMES, S.R. 79, 84, 87-88 HOLT, L. 69 HOLZTRATTNER, M. 373 HORACE 219 HOVORUN, C. 312

INDEX OF NAMES

HRÁDEK, K. 405 HUBER, W. 441, 452 HÜBNER, J. 404 HÜNERMANN, P. 112 HUGHES, G. 73 HUGH OF ST. VICTOR 223 HUGHSON, T. 8, 430, 437 HUS, J. 1, 8, 13, 15, 17, 397-399, 401412 IBN-SINA (AVICENNA) 181 IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH 102, 222, 240 ILLICH, I. 308 INDA, C. 71 IRENAEUS OF LYON 227 ISERLOH, E. 139, 198 IZBICKI, T.M. 19 JACOBS, L.F. 194 JANDEJSEK, P. 364 JANSEN, K.L. 31 JANSENIUS, C. 154 JANSSEN, W. 139-140, 142-144 JASPERS, K. 179 JEDIN, H. 142, 146 JENSON, R.W. 137, 415 JEROME 16 JOACHIM OF FLORA 223, 365 JOHANN FRIEDRICH OF SAXONY 135 JOHN XXIII 65, 315 JOHN CHRYSOSTOM 101-102, 245 JOHN OF DAMASCUS 234 JOHN PAUL II 8, 68, 72-74, 237, 329, 331, 374, 377, 383, 399, 414, 417, 428 JOHNSON, E. 319, 373 JOHNSON, E.E.S. 39 JONAS, J. 150 JUNG, J.E. 196 JUNGMANN, J. 191, 193, 200 JUSTINIAN I 33 JUSTIN MARTYR 227-228, 245 KADENS, E. 30-31, 33-34 KÄRKKÄINEN, V.-M. 92, 100, 105 KAISER, E.G. 70 KALB, A. 19 KAMPMANN, J. 276 KAMUF, P. 308

INDEX OF NAMES

KANT, I. 177 KARANT-NUNN, S.C. 280, 291 KASPER, W. 3, 111, 117-120, 132, 345, 382, 414, 452, 460 KASUBA MALU, R. 342 KAUFMANN, M. 153 KAVANAGH, A. 254 KEENAN, J. 62 KEHINDE OLUPONA, J.O. 345 KEJŘ, J. 405 KENIS, L. 22, 99, 153 KENNEDY, V.L. 195 KERR, F. 127, 128 KIDD, B.J. 195, 199 KIESLING, C. 237, 245 KILBY, K. 3-4, 117, 160, 171 KILMARTIN, E.J. 197, 199 KINGDON, R.M. 293 KIRK, J. 296, 299-301 KLOEK, E. 286 KNAAKE, J.K.F. 380 KNIEPS-PORT LE ROI, T. 264 KNOX, J. 296 KOBELT-GROCH, M. 286 KOCH, K. 8, 444-453 KOERNER, J. 194 KOLB, R. 53, 56, 135-136, 138-139, 152, 204-205, 275, 448-449 KOLESNYK, A. 403 KOMONCHAK, J. 329, 333-334 KOTSKO, A. 308-309 KRANEMANN, B. 384 KRIEBEL, H.W. 38, 57 KRIEG, R. 70, 120 KREMERS, A. 305 KRENTZ, N. 281 KÜHNE, H. 288 KÜMIN, B. 288 KÜNG, H. 113-116, 128-130 KUHN, T. 92, 125 KULLER SHUGER, D. 31 KUMLER, A. 196 KWESI SARPONG, P. 346 LADNER, G.B. 308 LÄPPLE, A. 191 LAING, D. 296 LAMB, M.L. 327 LAMBERIGTS, M. 22, 99, 153

471

LAMBERT, T.A. 293 LANE, A.N.S. 140, 142-146 LANE, B.G. 194 LARSEN, T. 82 LARSON, M.J. 299 LÁŠEK, J.B. 403-404, 408 LATOMUS, J. 1, 13-14, 21-29, 34 LATOMUS, J., JR. 22 LAZARETH, W. 224 LEFÈVRE D’ÉTAPLES, J. 14 LEGRAND, H. 341 LEHMANN, H.T. 136, 146, 276, 305 LEHMANN, K. 242, 457 LEIBNIZ, G.W. 122 LEIMGRUBER, S. 207 LENNAN, R. 329 LENTES, T. 196 LEO X 444 LEO XIII 2, 60-61, 78, 84-85, 377 LEPPIN, V. 136, 140, 198, 276, 281 LESSING, E. 190 LESSIUS, L. 153, 156 LESTER, A.E. 31 LEVERING, M. 74, 103, 327 LEVI, A. 13 LEVY, I.C. 194, 197 LEXUTT, A. 140-143 LIERMANN, H. 392 LINDBECK, G. 94, 224 LITTLEDALE, A.V. 61 LOHFINK, N. 85-86 LOHSE, B. 54-56 LOISY, A. 84 LOMBARD, P. 403 LONERGAN, B. 334-335, 406, 417419, 430 LONG, D.S. 373 LONGLEY, B. 417 LOSEO, A. 30 LOSSKY, N. 422 LOTTIN, A. 202 LOTTIN, O. 63 LOWE, T.S. 68-69 LUCAN 219 LUGIOYO, B. 140-145 LUNEAU, R. 338, 347, 350 LUTHER, M. 2, 4-5, 7-8, 22, 27, 29-30, 34, 36-37, 39-40, 47, 53-56, 5860, 70, 111-112, 115, 135-137, 142,

472

INDEX OF NAMES

145-146, 150, 155-157, 174, 187, 195, 199-208, 210, 224, 238, 242243, 258, 270, 275-288, 292, 305, 311, 315, 379-380, 392, 431-434, 439-440, 442-444, 446, 448-450, 459 LYCURGUS 218 MACCULLOCH, D. 314 MACNAMARA, V. 72-73 MACQUARRIE, J. 3, 111, 117, 121-124, 132 MACY, G. 194, 197 MAIER, H. 378 MAIER, P. 38, 41-42, 58 MAIMONIDES 181 MALLÈVRE, M. 397 MALONEY, L.M. 227 MALULA, J.-A. 341-342 MANNERMAA, T. 137 MANNEY, J. 64 MANNING, R.R. 126, 131 MANNION, G. 333-334, 351 MANSON, A. 65 MARINI, P. 355 MARSHALL, I.H. 92 MARTIN, J. 25 MARTIN-SCHRAMM, J.B. 413, 431-433 MARX, A. 220 MARX, K. 305, 308, 314 MASON, R.A. 296 MATAVA, R.J. 153-155 MATHESON, P. 142, 155 MATTOX, M.J. 242 MAYER, A.C. 7, 393 MAYER, T.F. 146 MAZOUR-MATUSEVICH, Y. 13-14, 22 MAZZA, E. 238 MCBRIEN, R. 324 MCCORMICK, R. 73 MCDONAGH, E. 72, 74 MCDONNELL, K. 345 MCELWEE, J.J. 77 MCFARLAND, I.A. 117 MCGOWAN, A. 87, 92-93, 102-103 MCGRATH, A.E. 13, 15, 24, 28, 31-32, 116-117, 130-131, 146, 148, 152 MCGUIRE, B.P. 14, 19 MCKALLUM, J. 275-276, 301-302 MCKEE, E.A. 292

MCKIM, D.K. 231 MCKNIGHT, S. 92 MCLAUGHLIN, R.E. 38-39, 53, 57-58, 278 MCMAHON, C. 6, 336 MCNEILL, J.T. 293, 380 MEDIAN, J. 357 MEIER, J.P. 317 MELANCHTHON, P. 3, 34, 37, 39-40, 138-144, 150, 155, 157, 216, 280, 282 MELLONI, A. 146 MELVE, L. 35 MELVILLE, A. 299 MENGUS, R. 342 MERRICK, J. 102 MESSNER, R. 198 MESSORI, V. 343 METHUEN, C. 5-6, 279, 283, 285, 306 METZ, J.B. 266-267, 318 MEUFFELS, H.O. 142 MEYER, H. 447, 453, 462 MEYER, H.B. 198, 393 MILAVEC, A. 227 MILBANK, J. 308, 312-313, 331, 334 MILIC, J. 401, 403 MILLER, B.A. 275 MILLER, M.J. 224, 328 MILLER, V. 263 MILLS, C. 311 MITCHELL, N. 247 MOERSCHBACHER, M. 342 MOLLER, P. 97, 102-103 MOLNÁR, A. 398, 404, 408 MOLTMANN, J. 67, 71-72, 361 MONNET, J. 372 MONNET, M.L. 372 MONSENGWO, L. 342 MONSMA, V. 82-83 MORE, T. 229 MORÉE, P. 398 MORENO GARCÍA, D.M. 362 MORLEY, G. 122, 123 MORRELL, E. 35 MORRILL, B.T. 264, 266-267 MOUNTAIN, W.J. 23 MOXON, M. 416 MUDGE, L. 334

INDEX OF NAMES

MÜHLEN, H. 361 MÜLLER, G. 70, 140, 282, 284, 384 MÜLLER, L. 390 MÜNTZER, T. 365 MULLAN, D.G. 299 MULLER, R.A. 131 MURDOCH, M.J. 276, 330 MURPHY, L.F. 142 MURPHY, R.E. 84 MURPHY, T.A. 244 MURRAY, L. 232 MURRAY, P.D. 62, 344, 413-414, 417, 419, 421, 423-425, 429-430 MUSCULUS, W. 141 MUSSON, A. 30-33, 35 NABHAN-WARREN, K. 64 NAPHY, W.G. 293 NAPIER, W. 383 NDONGALA MADUKU, I. 338, 341, 343, 345-346 NELSON BURNETT, A. 294 NESTINGEN, J.A. 138-139 NEUHAUS, R. 224 NEUNER, P. 381, 422, 424 NEUSER, W.H. 140-141 NEWMAN, J.H. 379, 387 NICHOLAS OF CUSA 122 NICKOLOFF, J. 70 NICOLAS OF LYRA 223 NIEDERWIMMER, K. 227 NIETZSCHE, F. 36 NIEUWOLT, S. 38 NOBLE, A. 290, 304 NOBLE, I. 8, 366, 368, 397, 399, 404, 406, 410, 412 NOBLE, T. 7, 361, 366, 375 NOLL, M.A. 59, 82 NOLL, R. 211 NOVOTNÝ, V. 401 NTUMBA DIPA, D. 342 NÜSSEL, F. 151 NYBERG, R. 440 NYSTROM, C. 59 OAKLEY, F. 19, 180 OBERMAN, H. 26-27, 136-137, 139, 148, 199 OCKHAM, W. 401-402

473

O’COLLINS, G. 107, 128, 310, 354, 356-358 O’CONNELL, M.J. 13, 71, 112 OECOLAMPADIUS, J. 22, 26-27 O’GARA, M. 414 Ó HANNRACHÁIN, T. 300, 303 O’HARA, W.J. 63 O’KEEFE, J.J. 73 OKOYE, J. 77 OLDFIELD, J.S. 95-96 OLIPHINT, K.S. 131 OLSON, J.E. 292 OLSON, R. 91-93, 108 O’MALLEY, J.W. 65, 146-148, 151152, 351 ORIGEN OF ALEXANDRIA 102, 107, 213 O’RIORDAN, S. 387 ORMEROD, N. 333-334, 424, 432 ORSY, L.M. 340 ORTMANN, V. 140-141 OSIANDER, A. 152 OWEN, J. 230 PAASCH, K. 140 PADOVANI, A. 211 PALLAZO, E. 192, 201 PÁNEK, J. 403 PANNENBERG, W. 146, 242, 457 PANOFSKY, E. 194 PARTEE, C. 54-55 PATTISON, G. 314 PAUL III 135 PAUL V 155 PAUL VI 65, 68-69, 243, 342-345, 355, 358 PAVLICEK, O. 401 PEARSE, M. 37, 52 PELIKAN, J. 136, 276 PENG-KELLER, S. 156-157 PEREZ, J. 223 PESCH, O.-H. 137, 146, 157 PETERS, A. 157 PETRELLA, I. 373 PETRUS LOMBARDUS 141 PETTEGREE, A. 13 PFLUG, J. 140, 142, 155 PFNÜR, V. 139, 198 PHILIBERT, P. 315, 338 PHILIPS, G. 378

474

INDEX OF NAMES

PIERCE, J.M. 240 PIETZ, R. 37 PIGHIUS, A. 142 PINCKAERS, S. 60, 72 PISCATOR, C. 150 PISTORIUS, J. 142 PITRE, B. 103 PIUS IV 151 PIUS V 153 PIUS IX 377-378 PIUS XII 2, 61, 78, 85, 243, 351, 382 PIZZEY, A. 414, 423, 436 PLACHER, W.C. 116 PLASGER, G. 56 PLATO 310 PLAUTUS 219 PLOTINUS 122 PLUMMER, M.E. 275 PLUTARCH 218 POBEE, J. 422 POLE, R. 145-146 POLIVKA, M. 403 POPE, S.J. 326 PORTER, J. 74 POSPISIL, C.V. 398, 403 POSTHUMUS MEYJES, G.H.M. 14, 21 POTTMEYER, H.J. 389 PRADA, O.E. 362-363, 367, 372 QUINN, E. 113 QUINN, J.R. 392 QUINTILIAN 232 RAHNER, K. 4, 66, 67, 71, 75, 86, 163, 164, 168, 318, 328, 340, 378 RAINALDUS ROMANUS 380 RANGER, T. 28-29 RATZINGER, J. 61-62, 64-66, 86, 97-98, 224, 340, 343, 345, 353, 356, 371, 378, 391, 446-448, 450 RAUSCH, T.P. 326, 413, 415 RAY, B. 345 REGINALD OF PIPERNO 189 REES, W. 390 REISNER, A. 40 REJCHRTOVÁ, N. 403 RHOADS, D. 432-434 RHODES, R.E., JR. 325 RICHTER, C. 156

RICŒUR, P. 5, 268 RIGAUDIERE, A. 32 ROBBINS, J.W. 312 ROBER, D. 327 ROBINSON, P.W. 198 ROBRA, M. 69 RODGER, P.C. 244 ROETTGER, G.J. 62 ROSSI, P. 4, 187 ROTH, J. 39, 286 ROTHSTEIN, B. 194, 196 RUBIN, M. 196 RÜCKERT, H. 146, 148 RUETHER, R.R. 309 RUGGIERI, G. 346 RUMMEL, E. 22 RUSCH, W.G. 419-421, 426, 447, 456, 462 RUSSELL, L.M. 373 RYAN, T. 416 RYAN, W.F. 63 RYRIE, A. 275, 303, 305 SAARINEN, R. 243 SÁNCHEZ NAVARRO, L. 98 SANDERS, F. 98 SANGU, J.D. 346, 348 ŚANKARA 181 SARAH, R. 357 SARMENTARIUS, R. 40 SASSE, H. 84-85 SAWARD, J. 224 SCANNONE, J.C. 370, 383 SCHÄUFELE, W.-F. 156 SCHAFF, D. 397 SCHAFF, P. 84 SCHALLER, C. 448 SCHELKENS, K. 86, 88 SCHICKENDANTZ, C. 367-372, 374375 SCHILLEBEECKX, E. 73, 148, 329 SCHINDEL, J.J. 199 SCHLÄFER, R. 284 SCHLIE, H. 193 SCHMITT, C. 310, 312, 316-317 SCHNACKENBURG, R. 63, 69 SCHNAPP, K. 289-290 SCHNITZLER, N. 203 SCHÖNSTÄDT, H.-J. 439

INDEX OF NAMES

SCHORN-SCHÜTTE, L. 278, 283 SCHREINER, K. 288 SCHROEDER, H.J. 227 SCHRÖER, H. 282, 284 SCHOUTEN, M.A. 154 SCHÜLLER, B. 73 SCHÜRMANN, H. 72 SCHÜSSLER, H. 21 SCHÜSSLER FIORENZA, F. 79, 373 SCHUGER, D.K. 32, 34 SCHULTENOVER, D.G. 351 SCHULTHEIS, S. 140, 142 SCHULTZ, S.G. 38-39 SCHULZ, C. 38 SCHWAB, G. 310 SCHWENCKFELD, C. 2, 37-54, 56-58 SCOTT, T. 285 SCOTUS, J.D. 122, 137, 141, 145, 401 SEDMAK, C. 361 SEGUENNY, A. 38, 57 SEHLING, E. 287 SELDERHUIS, H.J. 55-57, 142 SERIPANDO, G. 146 SESBOÜÉ, B. 353-354 SEVERIN, S. 384 SEXTON, J. 87 SHEPPARD, L.C. 65 SHERMAN, R.J. 380 SHRIVER, G.H. 192 SIEBEN, H.J. 389 SIEDENTOP, L. 313-314 SIMMINS, E. 433 SIMON, R. 211 SIMPSON, M. 72 SINNEMA, D. 155 SKALBA, R.J. 249 SKYDSGAARD, K. 68 SLATER, T. 60 ŠMAHEL, F. 401 SMITH, C. 92, 99 SMITH, J.H. 309 SMYTH, K. 378 SOBRINO, J. 361, 364 SOCRATES 179 SOKOLOWSKI, R. 182 SONNTAG, H. 315 SOO PARK, C. 283, 288 SOUSEDÍK, S. 403 SOYINKA, W. 345

475

SPARKS, K. 92 SPEER, C. 288 SPENER, P.J. 82 SPICQ, C. 63 SPINKA, M. 401 SPITZ, L.W. 287 SPOHN, W. 73 SPURLOCK, S. 275, 303 STALLSWORTH, P.T. 224 STANGLIN, K.D. 154 STAPLEY, M. 196 STAUPITZ, J. VON 136 STAYER, J.M. 39, 286, 291 STEWART, B. 69, 77 STEWART, L. 300-302 STJERNA, K.I. 137 STOECKLE, B. 72 STOLK, J.M. 140-141, 145 STRANSKY, T.F. 422 STRAUSS, L. 312 STRONG, J. 229 STUFLESSER, M. 253 SUÁREZ, F. 154 SULLIVAN, F. 325-326, 353, 358 SVOBODA, J. 400 SWAIN, S.R. 100 SWANSON, R.N. 13 SWETNAM, J. 228-229, 234 SWIEZAWSKI, S. 398 TANNER, K. 4, 160, 164-170 TANNER, N.P. 146-149, 197-199 TAPPER, R. 22, 27 TAULER, J. 136 TAYLOR, C. 173-182, 186, 308 TAYLOR, H. 224 TEMPLE, W. 64 TERTULLIAN 227, 231, 380 TESKE, R. 346 TE VELDE, D. 154 THANNER, T. 154-155 THIBODEAU, T.M. 192 THILS, G. 387 THELWALL, S. 231 THEODOSIUS I 33 THÖNISSEN, W. 136, 156, 454 THOMAS, H.A. 94 THOMAS, L.-V. 347 THOMAS OF CELANO 397, 401, 412

476

INDEX OF NAMES

TILLARD, J.-M.R. 250, 341, 343, 345 TILLMANN, F. 62-63 TODD, M. 298, 301-302, 304 TÖPFER, B. 408 TONZAROVÁ, H. 411 TORRANCE, I.R. 117 TORRANCE, T.F. 103 TRACY, D. 319 TRANVIK, M.D. 138 TREIER, D.J. 82, 98, 105, 108 TRUMP, D. 81 TURKSON, P.K.A. 351 TYERMAN, C. 400 ULMEN, G.L. 310 ULRICH, L. 388 URBAN VI 400 UZUKWU, E. 4-7, 339-341, 343, 347348, 351, 354, 358 VACHON, A. 63 VÁCLAV IV 404 VAHANIAN, N. 312 VAN ASSELT, W.J. 154 VAN AUSDALL, K. 194, 197 VAN DEN BELT, H. 100, 101 VAN DEN BRINK, G. 106, 108 VAN DER KOOI, C. 55, 106, 108 VAN DER WEYDEN, R. 190, 194-197, 202, 210 VAN EIJL, E.J.M. 153 VAN EST, W.H. (ESTIUS) 153-154, 156 VAN EYCK, J. 193 VAN GENNEP, A. 340 VANHOOZER, K. 96, 100 VANHOYE, A. 98 VANIN, C. 432 VAN LIEBURG, F.A. 155 VAN OCKHAM, W. 141 VAN VEEN, M. 286 VATABLE, F. (VATABULUS) 231 VATTIMO, G. 312 VIDLER, A.R. 315 VIEHMEYER, L.A. 41 VIGEN, A.M. 432 VIGIL, P. 362 VIRGIL 219 VISCHER, L. 244, 393 VISSER, P. 286

VISSER ’T HOOFT, W. 422 VOOLSTRA, A. 286 VORGRIMLER, H. 64, 91, 325, 378 VOS, A. 154 WAGNER, H. 388 WAINWRIGHT, G. 243, 422 WAITE, G.K. 286 WALDHAUSER, C. 403 WALDSTEIN, M.M. 90-91 WALKER, A.J. 63 WALSH, J. 66 WALSHAM, A. 30 WALTER, P. 157 WANDEL, L.P. 4, 195, 198, 201, 203, 210 WARD, G. 129-130, 314, 317 WARFIELD, B. 86-87, 95, 103 WASHBURN, C.D. 456 WEBB, P. 422 WEBER, M. 169 WEBSTER, J. 62, 101-103, 108, 129 WEERDA, J.R. 295 WEINSTEIN, D. 224 WELLHAUSEN, J. 86 WENDEBOURG, D. 439 WENGERT, T.J. 135, 138, 152, 204-205, 448-449 WERNER, E. 403 WESLEY, C. 82 WESLEY, J. 82 WESTERLUND, D. 345 WHELAN, G. 418 WHITE, J.F. 192 WHITEFIELD, G. 82 WHITEHEAD, A.N. 122 WICKS, J. 66 WIESNER-HANKS, M.E. 280 WIJLENS, M. 384 WILLEBRANDS, J. 325 WILLIAMS, C.P. 344 WILLIAMS, D.H. 92 WILLIAMS, G.H. 40, 286 WILLIAMS III, H.H.D. 2, 41, 49-51, 58 WILLIAMS, M.D. 94, 98, 106 WILMORE, G.S. 72 WINGREN, G. 282 WISLÖFF, C.F. 198 WISSE, M. 97

INDEX OF NAMES

WITHERINGTON, T.D. 5, 268, 272 WITHERUP, R. 89, 101 WOLF, H. 386 WOLFE, J. 314 WOOD, S. 5, 252, 413, 419-421 WRIGHT, N.T. 92 WYCLIF, J. 1, 13, 17, 36, 401-405, 408 YAGO, B. (ARCHBISHOP 348 YONG, A. 92, 106 YOUNG, C. 35

OF

ABIDJAN)

ZAJÍC, Z. 401 ZAKAI, A. 224 ZARTALOUDIS, T. 311 ŽENATÝ, D. 411 ZIKA, C. 196 ZIKMUND, M.T. 411 ZOA, J. 343, 346, 348-349 ZWINGLI, H. 278, 433 ZYCHA, J. 17

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259. C. KALONJI NKOKESHA, Penser la tradition avec Walter Kasper: Pertinence d’une catholicité historiquement et culturellement ouverte, 2013. XXIV320 p. 79 € 260. J. SCHRÖTER (ed.), The Apocryphal Gospels within the Context of Early 90 € Christian Theology, 2013. XII-804 p. 261. P. DE MEY – P. DE WITTE – G. MANNION (eds.), Believing in Community: 90 € Ecumenical Reflections on the Church, 2013. XIV-608 p. 262. F. DEPOORTERE – J. HAERS (eds.), To Discern Creation in a Scattering 90 € World, 2013. XII-597 p. 263. L. BOEVE – T. MERRIGAN, in collaboration with C. DICKINSON (eds.), Tradi55 € tion and the Normativity of History, 2013. X-215 p. 264. M. GILBERT, Ben Sira. Recueil d’études – Collected Essays, 2014. XIV-402 p. 87 € 265. J. VERHEYDEN – G. VAN OYEN – M. LABAHN – R. BIERINGER (eds.), Studies in the Gospel of John and Its Christology. Festschrift Gilbert Van Belle, 94 € 2014. XXXVI-656 p. 266. W. DE PRIL, Theological Renewal and the Resurgence of Integrism: The 85 € René Draguet Case (1942) in Its Context, 2016. XLIV-333 p. 267. L.O. JIMÉNEZ-RODRÍGUEZ, The Articulation between Natural Sciences and Systematic Theology: A Philosophical Mediation Based on Contributions 94 € of Jean Ladrière and Xavier Zubiri, 2015. XXIV-541 p. 268. E. BIRNBAUM – L. SCHWIENHORST-SCHÖNBERGER (eds.), Hieronymus als Exeget und Theologe: Interdisziplinäre Zugänge zum Koheletkommentar 80 € des Hieronymus, 2014. XVIII-333 p. 269. H. AUSLOOS – B. LEMMELIJN (eds.), A Pillar of Cloud to Guide: Text-critical, Redactional, and Linguistic Perspectives on the Old Testament in Honour 90 € of Marc Vervenne, 2014. XXVIII-636 p. 270. E. TIGCHELAAR (ed.), Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the Scriptures, 95 € 2014. XXVI-526 p. 271. E. BRITO, Sur l’homme: Une traversée de la question anthropologique, 2015. XVI-2045 p. (2 vol.) 215 € 272. P. WATINE CHRISTORY, Dialogue et Communion: L’itinéraire œcuménique 98 € de Jean-Marie R. Tillard, 2015. XXIV-773 p. 273. R. BURNET – D. LUCIANI – G. VAN OYEN (eds.), Le lecteur: Sixième Colloque International du RRENAB, Université Catholique de Louvain, 85 € 24-26 mai 2012, 2015. XIV-530 p. 274. G.B. BAZZANA, Kingdom of Bureaucracy: The Political Theology of Village 85 € Scribes in the Sayings Gospel Q, 2015. XII-383 p. 275. J.-P. GALLEZ, La théologie comme science herméneutique de la tradition de foi: Une lecture de «Dieu qui vient à l’homme» de Joseph Moingt, 2015. XIX-476 p. 94 € 276. J. VERMEYLEN, Métamorphoses: Les rédactions successives du livre de Job, 84 € 2015. XVI-410 p. 277. C. BREYTENBACH (ed.), Paul’s Graeco-Roman Context, 2015. XXII-751 p. 94 € 278. J. GELDHOF (ed.), Mediating Mysteries, Understanding Liturgies: On Bridging the Gap between Liturgy and Systematic Theology, 2015. X-256 p. 78 € 279. A.-C. JACOBSEN (ed.), Origeniana Undecima: Origen and Origenism in the 125 € History of Western Thought, 2016. XVI-978 p.

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280. F. WILK – P. GEMEINHARDT (eds.), Transmission and Interpretation of the Book of Isaiah in the Context of Intra- and Interreligious Debates, 2016. XII-490 p. 95 € 281. J.-M. SEVRIN, Le quatrième évangile. Recueil d’études. Édité par G. VAN 86 € BELLE, 2016. XIV-281 p. 282. L. BOEVE – M. LAMBERIGTS – T. MERRIGAN (eds.), The Normativity of History: Theological Truth and Tradition in the Tension between Church 78 € History and Systematic Theology, 2016. XII-273 p. 283. R. BIERINGER – B. BAERT – K. DEMASURE (eds.), Noli me tangere in Interdisciplinary Perspective: Textual, Iconographic and Contemporary Inter89 € pretations, 2016. XXII-508 p. 284. W. DIETRICH (ed.), The Books of Samuel: Stories – History – Reception 96 € History, 2016. XXIV-650 p. 285. W.E. ARNAL – R.S. ASCOUGH – R.A. DERRENBACKER, JR. – P.A. HARLAND (eds.), Scribal Practices and Social Structures among Jesus Adherents: 115 € Essays in Honour of John S. Kloppenborg, 2016. XXIV-630 p. 286. C.E. WOLFTEICH – A. DILLEN (eds.), Catholic Approaches in Practical Theology: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 2016. X-290 p. 85 € 287. W. FRANÇOIS – A.A. DEN HOLLANDER (eds.), Vernacular Bible and Religious Reform in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Era, 2017. VIII-305 p. 94 € 288. P. RODRIGUES, C’est ta face que je cherche … La rationalité de la théologie 92 € selon Jean Ladrière, 2017. XIV-453 p. 289. J. FAMERÉE, Ecclésiologie et œcuménisme. Recueil d’études, 2017. XVIII668 p. 94 € 290. P. COOPER – S. KIKUCHI (eds.), Commitments to Medieval Mysticism within 79 € Contemporary Contexts, 2017. XVI-382 p. 291. A. YARBRO COLLINS (ed.), New Perspectives on the Book of Revelation, 98 € 2017. X-644 p. 292. J. FAMERÉE – P. RODRIGUES (eds.), The Genesis of Concepts and the 78 € Confrontation of Rationalities, 2018. XIV-245 p. 293. E. DI PEDE – O. FLICHY – D. LUCIANI (eds.), Le Récit: Thèmes bibliques et 95 € variations, 2018. XIV-412 p. 294. J. ARBLASTER – R. FAESEN (eds.), Theosis/Deification: Christian Doctrines 84 € of Divinization East and West, 2018. VII-262 p. 295. H.-J. FABRY (ed.), The Books of the Twelve Prophets: Minor Prophets – 105 € Major Theologies, 2018. XXIV-557 p. 296. H. AUSLOOS – D. LUCIANI (eds.), Temporalité et intrigue. Hommage à 95 € André Wénin, 2018. XL-362 p. 297. A.C. MAYER (ed.), The Letter and the Spirit: On the Forgotten Documents 85 € of Vatican II, 2018. X-296 p. 298. A. BEGASSE DE DHAEM – E. GALLI – M. MALAGUTI – C. SALTO SOLÁ (eds.), Deus summe cognoscibilis: The Current Theological Relevance of Saint Bonaventure International Congress, Rome, November 15-17, 2017, 2018. XII-716 p. 85 € 299. M. LAMBERIGTS – W. DE PRIL (eds.), Louvain, Belgium and Beyond: Studies in Religious History in Honour of Leo Kenis, 2018. XVIII-517 p. 95 € 300. E. BRITO, De Dieu. Connaissance et inconnaissance, 2018. LVIII-634 + 635-1255 p. 155 €

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301. G. VAN OYEN (ed.), Reading the Gospel of Mark in the Twenty-first Century: Method and Meaning, 2019. XXIV-933 p. 105 € 302. B. BITTON-ASHKELONY – O. IRSHAI – A. KOFSKY – H. NEWMAN – L. PERRONE (eds.), Origeniana Duodecima: Origen’s Legacy in the Holy Land – A Tale of Three Cities: Jerusalem, Caesarea and Bethlehem, 2019. XIV-893 p. 125 € 303. D. BOSSCHAERT, The Anthropological Turn, Christian Humanism, and Vatican II: Louvain Theologians Preparing the Path for Gaudium et Spes 89 € (1942-1965), 2019. LXVIII-432 p. 304. I. KOCH – T. RÖMER – O. SERGI (eds.), Writing, Rewriting, and Overwriting in the Books of Deuteronomy and the Former Prophets. Essays in Honour 85 € of Cynthia Edenburg, 2019. XVI-401 p. 305. W.A.M. BEUKEN, From Servant of YHWH to Being Considerate of the Wretched: The Figure David in the Reading Perspective of Psalms 35–41 forthcoming MT, 2020. XIV-173 p.

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