With this [universal/catholic] Church we deny that we have any difference. Nay, rather, as we revere her as out mom, so we prefer to stay in her bosom.
– John Calvin, Reply to Sadoleto
The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, by Matthew Barrett
Shocking, perhaps. Clarifying Calvin’s words requires shedding one’s self of the concept that the word “catholic” just has actually meaning when preceded by the word “Roman.” Calvin would specify the word “catholic” as the “society of all the saints … spread over the whole world.”
It is the function of Barrett’s work to clarify just this, that it was the Reformers who were targeted at the earliest customs and doctrines of the catholic (universal) Church, and not the Roman Catholics. As he writes:
Whether one thinks the Reformers were appropriate is a theological matter that is not the problem of this book. Whether the Reformers defined themselves by this theological conviction nevertheless, is a historical matter, one that specified the Reformation as a whole.
Which, as I discussed in my first post on this book– and holds true whenever I compose on such topics– is my purpose as well. The history, not the theology. What were the ancient Christian historic teachings, beliefs, practices, dogmas, and so on, and were the Reformers speaking with this or not? That is the question. Whether these were theologically sound is a different matter– and a subject which I attempt to avoid when writing here, and motivate commenters here to avoid as well.
It was, according to history, the Reformers that were the heretics. This holds true if one defines “heretic” as one who does not conform to the present mentor and will of the Roman church. Jacopo Sadoleto, a Cardinal in good standing, would write to the Geneva church in 1539. His timing was such that it was shortly after Calvin was banished. Yet, the Geneva church asked Calvin to respond. And he did, with both barrels.
He informed Sadoleto that the Reformation is not only catholic however more catholic than Rome. … The Reformers believed that their teachings, in contrast to Rome’s, were not just faithful to the sacred Scriptures however allegiant to the catholic custom that embodied those same scriptural mentors.
That was the calm part.
Calvin said to Sadoleto, We are more catholic than you. “Our contract with antiquity is far more detailed than yours,” Calvin insisted.
The purpose of the Reformers was to restore this connection to antiquity, which had been sullied and misshaped by illiterate guys of indifferent character. The Reformers believed that they had not just the Bible, however likewise the major dogmas on their side. Per David Steinmetz:
The goal of the reformers was a reformed catholic church, built upon the structure of the prophets and the apostles, purged of the medieval developments that had distorted the gospel … It was an attract Christian antiquity. There was nothing less revolutionary in the 16th century than an appeal to the past– to that which was sound and evaluated. And with this, Calvin would continue in his reaction to Sadoleto:
“Where, pray, exist amongst you any vestiges of that real and holy discipline which the ancient bishops exercised in the Church? Have you not scorned all their institutions? Have you not stomped all the canons under foot? Then, your wicked profanation of the sacraments I can not believe of without the utmost scary.”
Luther remained in fundamental arrangement with such arguments. “We are the true ancient church … you have actually fallen away from us.” Melanchthon would continue along these lines:
The church “is an assembly dispersed throughout the whole world and … its members, wherever they are, and nevertheless separated in place, accept and externally proclaim the very same utterance or true teaching throughout all ages from the beginning to the very end.”
The credibility of the Reformation did not depend upon the visible– kneeling prior to the Eucharist or venerating images– however on the unnoticeable: the truth of their doctrine. Being “catholic” did not depend upon institutional badges. As for Rome, Melanchthon would include: “It is one thing to be called catholic, something else to be catholic in truth.” Individually, he would compose: “I am not developing brand-new viewpoints.”
Conformity was not to be put above soteriology. Even more, the idea of conformity presupposed that Rome was in continuity with the past. The Reformers argued that much of this required conformity could not be found in the ancient church– that these were accretions.
Naturally, Rome had the political and ecclesiastical power to expel the Reformers. However, as we know, the Reformers did not go away so quickly. It was Rome’s choice, not Luther’s, to oust the “heretics.”
Conclusion
Luther was not braking with catholic tradition but self-consciously obtaining the custom, bringing to bear the inmost insights of Augustine and the terrific monastic instructors on a [late middle ages] scholasticism out of touch with its own [Scholastic] roots.
– David S. Yeago, “The Catholic Luther”
As an aside, I have come across this last idea regularly recently– and, undoubtedly, it is contrary from what I initially comprehended of Luther. Yes, Luther decried Scholasticism. But he wasn’t decrying the Scholasticism of Aquinas (there remain questions, at least for me, about how well Luther comprehended Thomistic Scholasticism). Rather, he reacted against the later Scholasticism– the Scholasticism that consisted of the drive towards nominalism; the Scholasticism of Scotus and Occam, among others.
However back to the main point and the very first sentence of this last mention: the Reformers wanted reformation– a return to both the Bible and the ancient Christian customs.