Lecture 12. I find this rock the Catholic Reformation. If you're going to be talking about Ignatius Loyola today and we know of course that Loyola was one of the great Catholic reformers of the 16th century and the founder of the Society of Jesus. Protestants will not agree with Loyola on everything, perhaps not even on most things, but I am going to use a prayer from Ignatius Loyola because it is a prayer in which he prays to God that God will use him that he will be devoted to God's service and we can certainly share that prayer with this great Catholic counter-reformation leader that we too would be devoted to the service of God. Let's pray. Teach us, Lord, to serve you as you deserve to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to labor and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do your will. Amen. There's an old story that when Charles V called the council at Augsburg in 1530 a group of actors appeared and asked the emperors permission to put on a kind of play, a kind of pantomime and the emperor gave them permission to do this and so they're entered into the hall before Charles and the others who were there, a masked figure in a doctor's gown and on the back of this figure, the name Johann Rochland and this man, this figure, threw down upon the floor a bundle of sticks, some of the sticks were straight and some were crooked and then he left. Next followed another figure in Leica Tire whose name was Erasmus of Rotterdam and for a long time he tried to make the crooked sticks square with the straight sticks, finding that his labor was in vain. He retired in great disturbance of mine. The third masked figure was out of a monk, label Martin Luther, who bringing in fire and fuel, set a light to the crooked sticks and when the flame caught them up, he too left. Then came in one clad like an emperor who with his drawn sword tried to keep the fire and the sticks apart but when the flame gathered strength all the more he went away in great anger. Last of all came at a Pope, bearing the name of Leo the 10th, ringing his hands until looking about him for some help. He saw two jars, one full of oil and the other of water and rushing to them like a madman, he seized the oil and poured it upon the fire which spreading itself all around compelled him to flee who these actors were no one knew for without waiting for pay they disappeared. But the moral of their play was clear and it was one that even Charles the Fifth would have been able to understand. We're going to talk today about Catholic Reformation and that little story reviews some of the facts of the history that we've studied so far. But as we look at the whole century, the whole 16th century, we'll look now at how the Catholic Church responded to all that we have been talking about so far. Sometimes this is called the Counter Reformation and there's a certain legitimacy in the use of that expression because the Catholics produced a counter Reformation to counter what the Protestants were doing. But usually now it's called the Catholic Reformation because Catholic scholars have said with some degree of assurance that I think we would agree with them that the Catholic Church was already trying to reform church even before the Protestant Reformation that the Protestants in reforming as they did caused the Catholic Reformation to move with greater speed. So we could call it Counter Reformation or Catholic Reformation but I prefer to use the label Catholic Reformation. At first the Catholic Church reacted rather ineffectively to what the Protestants were doing. It took a while for the Catholic Church to get its act together and to begin to recover territory that had been lost to the Protestants and not only went back that territory but advanced Catholic Church in Europe and beyond Europe. So there was a gradual development of this effective Catholic Reformation and we try to describe it for you using the illustration of football game with the 25-year periods representing the quarters of a football game. The end of the first quarter I think we would say it was something like seven to nothing favor of the Protestants. By the end of the half was 35 to seven. The riot was taking place. By the end of the third quarter, however, it was 42 to 35 favor of the Protestants. By the end of the game, it was 42 to 45 favor of the Catholics. Well I've just thought of made that off and I don't have any absolute assurance about that score but it's my way of trying to describe how the Catholic counter-reformation very effectively by the middle of the century and toward the end of the century recovering great amount of territory that had been lost. Let's look at that in more detail and see some of the major influences and figures related to that story and we have to start with a very important new Catholic order. The Society of Jesus. The story of the Society of Jesus or the Jesuits begins in a cave in Spain. The year 1521 you're doing a timeline perhaps you'll have on your timeline. The year 1521 already because that was the year that Martin Luther was in the Vortberg translating the Bible you testament into German. So while Luther was hidden away in the Vortberg in Germany, a man named Ignatius Loyola was hiding in a cave, not really hiding but he had retreated to that cave in order to try to deal with the religious turmoil that was going on in his life. He had been a soldier, Spanish soldier. He had been injured in a battle and so he decided to abandon the career of a soldier and become a pilgrim. He set out as a pilgrim and a penitent to the shrine of our lady of Montserrat where he hung up his sword, giving it over to Mary and dedicated his life then to be soldier. The soldier of the church and he withdrew to the cave at Montresa and there he prayed and sought God's guidance. While he was there, he conceived of a book published later, one of the most significant books in the 16th century is called The Spiritual Exercises. The book contains a series of guided meditations to use by a Christian to discipline himself and to develop in the Christian life. This book helped to create the order that Ignatius found it. The 17th century illustrated edition of The Spiritual Exercises shows how it worked. Here's a picture of a man who is suffering from the seven deadly sins. The spiritual exercises would identify the seven deadly sins, say what they are and how one could be rescued from a life given over to the seven deadly sins. Another illustration, the hand of contemplation as the Jesuit would examine his concepts, ticking off the various points that would be related to the five fingers of the hand. There were different exercises and different approaches to Christian discipline and to the Christian life in the book called The Spiritual Exercises. After a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and a time of study in Spain and some uncertainty as to what to do next, Ignatius Loyola studied at the Sorbonne in Paris for a short time. At the college de Montague where he probably just barely missed meeting John Calvin who had earned his MA there at the same school early in the year 1528. And then Loyola with six other men who shared his vision organized the society of Jesus in 1534 and the Pope established the order in 1540. And so we have then a new Roman Catholic order and one that is going to be the most powerful and the most significant in the 16th century counter reformation. I've included in the syllabus two of the rules for thinking with the church that Loyola drew up as guidance for the Jesuits. You can read number 13 and number 17 in the syllabus but basically what Loyola is saying there is a Jesuit has absolute obedience to the church. And also a Jesuit would oppose the revival of true Augustinianism in the church. So with those two rules the Jesuit order is going to be very much at the command of the Pope and also very much opposed to any kind of reformation teaching that would recover the teaching of Saint Augustin. The Jesuits produced a discipline and a lead core of men for the counter reformation actually took 12 years to become a Jesuit, 12 years of study and self examination and discipline. So the people who got through that program and entered into the society of Jesus were educated and disciplined people committed to their cause. I think if we went back to the analogy of the football game there are some new players coming into the game now and they are well prepared to play the game and that's one reason that the game is going to take on quite a different complexion in the third quarter. The Jesuits specialized in education which led eventually to the founding of great Jesuit universities which still true today Saint Louis University is one of the Jesuit schools in this country and around the world the Jesuits have created universities from the very beginning this order was concerned with education. And with theology one of the greatest of the Catholic theologians was Robert Bellarmine, great Jesuit theologian and the Jesuits were concerned with counseling and spiritual guidance as you would guess from spiritual exercises. And so the Jesuits became experts in spiritual counseling in fact they became infamous for it because they developed a system of casualty in which they could to many people excuse almost anything if they did it in the right way. So Jesuits earn reputation of saying one thing and meaning another but to them this was part of casualty and spiritual counseling there's an old Catholic joke that says there are three things that no one knows how much of the many can knows how many orders there are for women in the Catholic church and what a Jesuit is really thinking. I didn't make that up Catholic still that another aspect of the Jesuit movement and one that we admire because Protestants have not yet been able to move in this direction was the emphasis on missions the Jesuits did not remain in Europe but under the leadership of the great Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier. They began to spread out around the world long before Protestants were able to do anything similar Xavier went first to India and then all the way to Japan preaching the Catholic faith he died in 1552 on an island close to the coast of China he wasn't able to enter China but he long to preach in China as well. And he looked out upon that land the rock he said it would not open died on that island looking at the great land of China which proved impossible for him to enter when Xavier died in 1552 there were over a thousand Jesuits in Europe in South America in Asia and in Africa. So one of the most significant figures of the century on the Catholic side of things was Ignatius Loyola certainly Francis Xavier along with him and the whole movement of the society of Jesus. The 16th century was also a time of flowering of Catholic spirituality especially in Spain. Spain is the great Catholic power France too but even more so Spain more than France or even Italy. And not only did Spain produce Loyola and Xavier but also two men by the name of John who were famous for their spirituality St. John of the Cross and St. John of God. St. John of God became the patron saint of hospitals out of the sick and the hospital across the street St. John mercy his name for this St. John this Spanish saint of the 16th century his picture is right inside the door. And I've seen that often when I go by I thank God for St. John of God and for hospitals and nurses and doctors but especially Teresa of Avala another Spanish figure of the 16th century.
Teresa entered a carmelite convent when she was 20 years old but she did not find it easy to be part of the convent. She tells us in her autobiography that she struggled for 20 years. She says this on the one hand God was calling me on the other hand I was following the world even though she was in the convent her interest in her direction was outside in the world. She said all the things of God gave me pleasure yet I was tied and bound to those of the world. It seemed as if I wanted to reconcile these two contradictory things I spent nearly 20 years on that stormy sea often falling in this way and each time rising again but the little purpose as I would fall once more. So for 20 years she struggled but finally she came into a kind of victory and her life then was marked with a very single-minded purpose. She said some very interesting things I read one the other day thank God for all the things I don't own. St. Teresa said and that showed a drastic stripping down to essentials which might also be a drastic enrichment of one's life by enabling one to focus on the more important things. The most important book of this period related to the inner life or spirituality was written by Teresa of Avala it's called the interior castle. It's a story of the quest for a deepening life of fellowship with God. As God enters the many rooms of the human soul almost like a Catholic Spanish Catholic pilgrims progress that set up in terms of a castle. It's beautifully written and very moving at places but certainly Teresa is no reformer, no Protestant reformer. Her theology is a combination of grace and works and there is no real assurance of salvation in that book. Teresa is so interesting because she combines both the life of contemplation and the life of activity or action. Catholics often debated this. Should one give oneself over to contemplation or over to activity. Should one be a Martha or a Mary and in Teresa of Avala we have a woman who was both. She was very practically minded person even though she wrote books of devotion and spirituality. She could say things like this from silly devotions and from sour face saints. Good Lord deliver us. She reformed 16 Carmelite communities in Spain. How was she able to do so much? One of her answers to that question when people ask her was I just did the next thing and that's probably good advice for seminary students too. The most famous picture of Teresa is the ecstasy of Teresa is really a statue in Rome by Bernini in the 17th century but much more accurate would be the contemporary drawing of Saint Teresa of Avala which shows her I think as a woman who knew what she was about. And you can really see that in the expression on her face. When we've looked at the Jesuits we've looked a little bit at the spirituality of the century represented particularly by Teresa of Avala. What is the papacy doing all this time? Well, people had temps at reform during the first half of the century were largely ineffective. And half-hearted. In fact there's a Lutheran cartoon which makes fun of the papal reform shows the Pope and the Cardinals trying to clean up things by some feather dusters as they dust around to remove the cobwebs here and there. But what that cartoon means is the real reform is not being done. If we go back to the analogy of the football game the problem really is the quarterback, Pope and the game plan which is not a very effective one. But the Pope's realized that something had to be done or that would soon be no Catholic church at all. Pope Paul III was able to move the reform ahead but it took him a while to do this. The Pope's would like to have called a council to unite the church and to oppose the Protestants but that was a very complicated procedure. We would think it could have easily been done but there were political issues and all kinds of power plays within the Vatican as well as within the Catholic church. As well as political pressures outside it made the calling of a council a very tricky and difficult thing. And for years Pope Paul III tried to organize a council but these political problems and personal jealousies forced repeated postponements. Luther rather enjoyed all of this, watching it from Dittonberg and he compared the Pope's repeated failures to convene a council to the story of a medieval scoundrel named Mark Kauf who was condemned to die and his final request was that he be allowed to choose the limb from which he would be hanged. And then spent years and years leading his judges from tree to tree never really finding a limb that suited him.
Well finally the Pope was able to call the council council convene late in 1545 was to be a church council of all Christians including the Protestants. But Protestants did not attend because they realized it was not going to be a fair council with an open policy of debate. Luther fired one parting shot just before he died on February 18, 1546. A few weeks after the council began his parting shot was a book called Against the Papacy in Rome founded by the devil.
The council of Trent worked on and off mainly off for the next 18 years did not meet consistently during that time but it met in the town of Trent in northern Italy. Not far from Rome but actually within the bounds of the empire so it was a kind of neutral site and finally in 1564 its work was completed. He did the tannins and decrees of the council of Trent summarizes the Catholic doctrine the first and most important council in the history of the church to fully discuss different aspects of the life of the church. The council of Trent the findings of the council is summarized in the form of a short creed the profession of the tridentine faith council met at Santa Maria majority church in Trent and debated these momentous issues. Actually engraved in the wall of that church when the council finished sitting where the words here the Holy Spirit spoke for the last time because church felt that now everything had been settled. What did Trent actually say just a few highlights of the council of Trent first of all it centered authority in the papacy during the late medieval period there had been numerous conciliar movements which had held that the real power in the Catholic church was in the bishops or in the council. But after Trent the issue is settled all the way down to the present the Pope has the last word. The control of the church is centered in the papacy as doctor who still goes all he says the conciliar movement of the late middle ages had come to an end the modern Catholic church was born. But Trent did succeed in correcting the abuses of the church so many of the things that we have been talking about that were wrong with the Catholic church and which the Protestants had pointed out over and over again the immorality of the priest the ignorance of the priest of pluralism people holding more than one church office and the list goes on and on council of Trent. Clean up the life and ministry of the Catholic church so never again with the Catholic church fall to the low levels that it fell to before the Protestant Reformation and then Trent clarified Catholic doctrine much of this was clarified in opposition to Protestantism. There's certainly a continuity with medieval Catholicism but now there is a greater determination of what it really meant to believe Catholic doctrine many issues which were debatable or open before or now closed one Protestant Anglican scholar later scholar. He speaks of the new Trent religion of course the Catholic would never say that because Trent represents in the Catholic mind what the Catholic church had always believed but I think Bishop Ken is right when he says there was something different about the Catholic church after Trent there is a new Trent religion. But that new Trent religion has certain continuity with medieval Catholicism by a heartening of the lines in opposition to contemporary Protestantism to comment on just two of those aspects of the work of Trent the mentioned first the determination by the council that scripture and tradition would be equal. The same level dual authority equal reverence to be given to scripture and tradition very much in opposition of course to the so law scripture of teaching of the Protestant Reformation. I have included in the syllabus a comparison of how tradition is viewed by different parts of the 16th century church tradition zero is the attitude of the radical reformers get rid of it all and go back to the Bible. Tradition one represents more the magisterial reformers like Luther in Calvin where tradition is not to be totally ignored and thrown out it's to be subjected to the scrutiny of scripture but much of what has taken place in the history of the church can remain and we can learn from it and build upon it. But tradition two is the Roman Catholic position at Trent which says all saving truths and rules of conduct are contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions received from the mouth of Christ himself or from the apostles themselves could well be the modern Catholic church after Vatican two is somewhere between tradition one and tradition. But we'll have to look at that later when we come to that question at the end of the semester much time and effort of course was spent on the doctrine of justification and the council of Trent developed a careful doctrine of justification by faith and love. But then there's always a sentence after the Protestant sounding part in the canons of Trent that had something justification by faith Luther would say alone Trent would say not alone justification by faith and love. John Calvin wrote an answer to the acts of the council of Trent he called it the acts of the council of Trent with the antidote to be sure that Protestants not only understood what Trent was saying but how to answer Trent. Calvin said the whole may be summed up this way their era consists in sharing the work between God and ourselves so as to transfer to ourselves the obedience of a pious will in a sinning to divine grace whereas this is the proper work of God himself.
We're going to perpetuate a kind of percentage theology that goes back a long time to the semicolagians and Calvin says it can't be done salvation is the work of God alone not the work of God plus our contribution to God's work faith and repentance according to Calvin and the Protestants faith and repentance are part of salvation. The Calvinist response reform response to Trent came from John Calvin the Lutheran response to Trent which is even more massive than Calvin's writings a four volume work by Martin Chimnitz. The Catholics recognize that in Calvin and in Chimnitz they had worthy opponents in fact the Catholics often said that if the second Martin had not come the first Martin would not have stood. Second Martin of course was Martin Chimnitz defending the teaching of the first Martin who was Martin Luther. Grace withers the flower fades but the word of our God shall stand forever. Okay that was a quick quick trip through the whole century from the Catholic side of things so perhaps we can talk about that a bit. Any questions or ideas Don? The question is a very good one and a long one. I'll try to repeat it. The 39 articles Don says have a reformed flavor that's certainly true they are reformed it's a reformed confession but Anglican teaching links scripture and reason and tradition as being three authorities or three standards for the church is faith and polity that comes from Bishop Thomas Hooker and I'll answer it now but I'll answer it more in a week or so when we get to the beginning of our discussion of Anglicanism versus Puritanism it comes out of the context of that debate. Hooker does say even though there are those three standards scripture and reason and tradition that reason and tradition come under scripture so he doesn't make it exactly equal I think sometimes perhaps other people may see those as equal authorities but in Thomas Hooker's teaching they are not equal authorities. The 39 articles are reformed but open to misinterpretation I guess any confession is open to misinterpretation but there are some ambiguous phrases and statements that reading the 39 articles from a Calvinistic point of view can be read is very Calvinistic but they can be read in other ways too. Actually John Henry Newman in the 19th century in the Tractarian movement tried to read the 39 articles in line with medieval Catholicism in his famous track 90 that created an uproar in England and Newman knew that he was done for in the Church of England so he became a Roman Catholic at that point which he really was in his soul anyway before that. But the 39 articles interpreted in a proper historical way are very true to the reformed faith and you know the Westminster Confession when it was first written or the Westminster Assembly which meant to draw up the Westminster Confession started by saying we'll just revise the 39 articles and they got to article 15 before they decided to start all over and do a new one. But as you study what the Westminster Divines did with the 39 articles at least in the first 15 articles very few changes just a word or two here and there. Okay that means to some things that we're going to be talking about so you didn't get all that don't worry about it just worry about the test. How do you understand the mystical experiences of Teresa the picture by Bernini that I mentioned the statue of Teresa depicts her in ecstasy and one of those experiences where she is caught up in some sort of otherworldly experience. It's not an unusual aspect of a Catholic spirituality most of the of the saints will claim something like this or even the stigma with the wounds of Christ having been received in the body of the Catholic mystic Protestants have a hard time with all of that. I think we tend to doubt it and mysticism in the Catholic world or in the Protestant world too is something that is just unprovable it's unprovable the only thing you have is the person saying this is what happened to me. There is a Protestant mysticism but Protestants tend to avoid the excesses I think of Catholic mysticism because Protestants are more tied to the word of God whereas Catholic mysticism can often depart from that into a kind of unknown land. I don't know how to explain it you know I must say when I read those things I'm very skeptical and too committed to Warfield I think to allow much opening for these things. At the same time I don't want to say just because that person claims mystical experiences and I kind of question it that everything that person does is of no value because there's a great deal in some of these mystics that we can learn from. I didn't read in the lecture but when Bronwyn Rayburn littered funeral took place a couple years ago there was a quotation from St. Teresa on the order of worship which struck me as being most interesting granddaughter of Dr. Rayburn founder of Covenant Seminary Covenant Church and we were reading something that St. Teresa. St. Teresa said but it was something that had very much moved her and she had loved the writings of St. Teresa and found those writings great comfort to her as she died of cancer two years ago and this is the quotation from Teresa. Let nothing disturb the nothing of fright the all things are passing God never changes patient endurance attains to all things who God possesses in nothing is wanting alone God suffices and we can all say him into that. It is saying that Bronwyn's own experience had a very mystical aspect to it the end of their life just before she died yes. Okay the question is what about the Catholic Church today in relation to Trent it's all still there. Trent has not been revised or changed there is the new Catholic catechism but it is supposed to be flowing right out of the council of Trent. Of course what's happening today is that much is being rethought and perhaps Trent is being read more in a Protestant direction. So it's not that the Catholic Church is saying we changed our mind on these things but some people in the Catholic Church are trying to be much more Protestant the ECT group that produce the gift of salvation paper which is amazing to me sounds very Protestant sounds very reform doesn't sound tried in team but the Catholic scholars are certainly committed to Trent as Presbyterians are committed to the Westminster Confession. A few years ago when Thomas Howard converted to the Catholic Church he said that in the canons of Trent he found everything that he believed as an evangelical I can't see that you know because I I read Trent more in terms of its 16th century setting where it was very consciously being set up against Lutheranism and Calvinism and Protestantism in general. So if you read it historically in the 16th century setting I think you'll have to say there are two different types of Christianity here. There's the Protestant faith and there's the Catholic faith and they're not close together they're not the same thing and they're not close together either some very important issues. You read these documents like 39 articles or Council of Trent in a certain way they can be forced maybe or manipulated to mean something that they don't historically mean but that contemporary people would like for them to mean. Well we'll look at that again we'll have to examine this in a number of different ways as we go on further in the course.