The Tridentine response to the traditional Protestant understanding of justification by faith was firm and certain, as evidenced by the 1547 Decree on Justification, and left no room for further dialogue such as had occurred in previous years at Worms (November, 1540) and Regensburg (April-May, 1541). The firmly anti-Protestant codification of justification at Trent does not, however, offer an accurate picture of the various positions held by Catholic theologians, even a few of those at the Council of Trent, who were open to forms of justification sola fide. It is tempting to read into pre-Trent time a post-Trent position. Prior to Trent, however, the doctrine of justification had not received much codifying treatment, and so many Roman Catholics prior to Trent were apparently free to hold views of justification which were largely in line with the Lutheran position.

Protestants who held to a doctrine of justification sola fide were accused by Catholics of the “Trent persuasion” of developing a fictitious concept of justification, of “suggesting that the believer lives in a sort of Walter Mitty world in which he is treated as righteous when he actually nothing of the sort.” The same accusation could have been leveled against some from among their own Catholic ranks, especially against many in the Italian spirituali movement. In fact, the Catholic Reformation was largely stimulated by such thinkers prior to Trent. Similarly, the Counter-Reformation was seemingly not just in response to the Protestants, but also in response to some of Catholicism’s very own curia who held quasi-Lutheran views of justification.

As evidence of this reform movement within Roman Catholicism prior to the Council of Trent, this post will focus on the Consilium de Emendanda Ecclesia of 1537. This report on church reform was issued by a reform commission which was appointed by Pope Paul III during the previous year, and is a “surprising attack on the venality and other abuses associated with the curial system.” The commission was presided over by the Venetian diplomat Cardinal Gasparo Contarini, who would also later be appointed papal legate to the Diet of Regensburg in 1541.

Interestingly, other signers of this document include Cardinal Reginald Pole, who would later become Archbishop of Canterbury under the Tudor Queen Mary, and Gian Peitro Carafa who would later become Pope Paul IV in 1555. The signers of this document include many whose names are now synonymous with the spirituali movement. In would seem, then, that even though the spirituali largely held to justification sola fide, that when these theological “Walter Mittys” were given the opportunity to address the Pontiff on issues of reform they voiced their desire for the matters of institutional reform for which the non-spirituali Catholic reformers were calling.

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Before I begin writing after the culmination of a research project, I purchase some new music to be the soundtrack and provide encouragement to persevere. Its a good way to keep my writing moving forward and also broaden my musical horizons. You see, I can’t play a thing. I can’t even sing. So listening is all I have left. I have posted the Amazon review to my newest find on the misc. page. “Angel Dances” by the 12 cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic may be the second best research soundtrack I’ve found. Read the Amazon review on the misc. page and then listen at Amazon online. Amazing.

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I’ve posted the first sermon in the sermons archive here at commonplaces. It is with some embarassment that I post this particular sermon on the nature of true worship, not because of the content but because of my delivery. You can tell I’m nervous. I’ve preached about 500 times since then, so I hope I’ve improved a little.

Listen to it and let me know your thoughts.

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It would appear that I am out of step with contemporary scholarship. So much of what is being written today focuses on where Catholicism and Protestantism find agreement, such as this recent agreement reached by the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Methodist Council. Benedict even appraised it as “full visible unity.”

Meanwhile, I am digging into the Sixteenth Century disputory history between the English Catholic Richard Smyth, Thomas Cranmer and the Italian Reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli during his time at Oxford. Smyth had a bone to pick with PMV — Cranmer removed him from his Oxford lectureship to make room for PMV to come to England and help further the Reformed cause in England. PMV was happy to oblige.

I am presently wading through three homilies on justification by Cranmer and will shortly write a comparison with the locus on justification by PMV. PMV really goes to town on Smyth in his justification locus, so more investigation is needed there as well.

For all that is being done today to bury the hatchets, I find that history is much more interesting when we unearth them. In the name of scholarship, of course.

A quite helpful book along these lines is Anthony N. S. Lane’s Justification by Faith in Roman Catholic – Protestant Dialogue (London: T&T Clark, 2002). Interesting biographies of Catholic spirituali prior to Trent include Elizabeth Gleason’s Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome, and Reform (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) and Thomas Mayer’s Reginald Pole: Prince and Prophet (Cambridge University Press, 2000), although the latter concludes that the secrecy of Pole and the rest of the spirituali is because they were really just gay.
Any insights?

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“If there be enough in God to satisfy God, surely there must needs be enough in God to satisfy the souls of His people.” — Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), in An Ark for All God’s Noahs

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This post began as a much, much, longer post. But I decided no one would read it. I certainly would not. So I give you the blogger’s digest version. Let me know if you want the long one.

Calvin himself indicated that the hinge on which true faith turns is “that we do not regard the promises of mercy that God offers as true only outside ourselves, but not at all in us; rather that we make them ours by inwardly embracing them.”

Yet, he concedes that a doubt-free, perfectly assured confidence will always prove elusive. This truth always remains: that faith and assurance of faith are to be rooted not in the individual’s fallen and insufficient ability to pursue a testimony that will only prove elusive, but that they are rooted in the character of God.

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Of the writing of books there is no end, or so said that sagacious King Solomon. But what of their self-syndicating, ego-boosting, and rarely helpful cousins made possible by your friendly neighborhood ISP, aka, blogs? Surely the world doesn’t need yet another blog to read, or perhaps worse, another blogger in the offing.

But this blog will indeed strive to justify its existence by meeting a need, though perhaps it may well be that it will fill my needs rather than yours. You see, as interesting as I am confident this endeavor will be, it is more of an exercise in mental discipline on my part. I need a place where I can record my musings on theology, philosophy, art, life. In short, I need a ‘common place-book.’

We don’t write things down anymore. Even I, a bookbinder and fountain-pen lover, have chosen to adapt a WordPress blog to these ends rather than indulge the enjoyable but time swallowing practice of scribbling.

So, I give you commonplaces. Please feel free to comment, as that is what makes this format more productive that traditional common place-books. If my blog is akin to a common place-book, then your comments are akin to marginalia (not to be confused with scholia).

fyi: below is a copy of the title page from Peter Martyr Vermigli’s Common Places, which was originally published in Latin under the common title Loci Communes in 1576. I doubt that my version will have such staying power. At least I hope not.

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