St. Augustine famously argued that community is created as people with common affections for something mutually esteemed have opportunity to communicate about and celebrate those common affections. Oliver O’Donovan’s book “Common Objects of Love” was an exposition of this idea for modern culture. This have profoundly shaped my understanding of community, as a pastor and as a librarian. For the latter context, my approach to the library’s contribution to the the seminary where I serve has been transformed and is now driven by attempts to further our constituency’s opportunities to more deeply discover and communicate about those distinctives which drew the community together in the first place. Echoes of Augustine are hard for me to silence as I consider the use of oral history in the study of communities. It seems to me that if Augustine was right, and I believe he was, part of oral history is the attempt to discover what a community considers to be its distinctives and how that community communicates and celebrates those distinctives as a part of building their sense of true community.

This is my mental context when considering, for example, “popular memory as an object of study” (Perks and Thomson, 75ff). Setting aside for now the discussion of dominant memory and public representations of history, to which the implications of Augustine’s arguments are clear, do not Augustine’s precepts on community also bear directly on those more private narratives? One cannot exist totally in isolation from the other. Indeed, they inform and shape each other, mutually contributing to this thing called community. Oral history explores how this happens, prods the private memory for how it differs from and contributes to the public memory. It is in this way that we can avoid treating the object of history as ‘the past’ (Perks and Thomson, 84).

Ethical dilemmas can still be problematic, especially in regard to the interviewer’s relationship to the community whose constituency is being interviewed. The example of feminism is noted in the text, as is the correlation of this dilemma to the ongoing discussion between historians and anthropologists about methodologies. Perks and Thomson also point out that “oral historians have increasingly examined language ‘as the invisible force that . . . gives meaning to historical events.’” (Perks and Thomson, 94). I find this to be a helpful point of discussion. Of course, even the word ‘meaning’ has its own hermeneutical baggage: is meaning determined by the individual, thus allowing for a multiplicity of meanings, or by the community, or by some Other; but the point is still well taken. A community is shaped and developed (present tense) by events of the past by its interpretive communication of those events. An important point for oral histories to explore.

It is not without notice that I write these things on Good Friday, among the most important of days for my Community, and one for which disagreements in ‘meaning’ abound. Meaning is rooted in the author’s intention, and the intended meaning of historical events is determined by the One who sovereignly rules over it. In the case of Good Friday, thankfully, as also of Easter, the meaning is clearly set out for us in the clearest of ways — communicated by He who orchestrated it.

Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (ESV)

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It’s time to grab a bucket and start bailing.

I think it was D. L . Moody who famously quipped that the Church is like boat: in order for a boat to be what it was created to be, it must be in water. But if too much of the water gets in the boat it will sink. Similarly, in order for the Church to be what she was created to be she must be in the world. But if too much of the world gets in the Church, she will sink. Okay, so this analogy only goes so far and is admittedly flawed. Don’t miss his point, though.

James Twitchell’s Shopping for God: How Christianity Went From In Your Heart To In Your Face (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007) traces part of the problem to an idea conceived by a man named Mel Stewart. Actually, Mel just capitalized on an idea he saw while driving one day: a moveable type sign in front of a church. Heretofore churches did not typically have large signs since religion was considered private and signage was too public.

He added flourescent lights. He added larger letters. Twitchell thinks he turned American churches on to the idea of branding, the topic which the remainder of the book seeks to address. A fascinating study of the business of church marketing in America.

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This is the second in a series of posts on Reginald Pole, Cardinal in the Catholic Church during the Reformations in Europe. His initial sympathies with the spirituali and their views of justification by faith were eclipsed by his allegiance to Rome and his duty to submit to the Tridentine decrees on justification. The Treatie of Justification was found among some of his writings after his death and has been attribute to him with various levels of skepticism. This post begins an analysis of this document.

Read Part 1 here.

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Method and Influences in The Treatie of Justification

That the Treatie of Justification is scholastic in its orientation is of no particular concern, other than for those of authorship. The work is meticulously organized, as would be expected from a theological treatise of the day, appeals heavily to historical precedent, but also appeals to Scripture. The preface includes the overtly indicative need for the whole of the ensuing argument to be grounded in Scripture, or at least for it to be grounded in the traditional interpretation of the Scripture under the authority of the Church fathers, namely Augustine.(4) In fact, the author words the preface in such a way as to leave no doubt that he is prepared to offer the reader a theology of justification wholly within the traditional Roman Catholic view. If Pole did indeed author the work, this may indicate his adoption of Tridentine theology and is here attempting to distance himself from his former views.

The author seeks to provide a Via Regia as a third alternative to two dangerous interpretations of the Scriptural doctrine of justification. The first of these dangers is a Pelagian over-reliance on works, an attempt at justification without the help and grace of God. The second danger is a Lutheran over-reliance on the grace of God, an attempt at justification without the aid of good works. The proposed Via Regia, the “true and high way,” is subsequently expounded in three aspects: how the believer is made just and righteous; how the believer is restored to justice upon falling; and how the believer may finally attain to salvation and glory.

The Influence of Augustine

Given the heavy reliance on Augustinian precedent exhibited by A Treatie of Justification, some consideration of the Augustinian view is warranted. Let it first be noted that Augustine should not be read anachronistically as attempting to settle issues debated centuries after his death. However, his posthumous support can be, and is, claimed by Protestants and Catholics alike. He can certainly be credited with bringing the doctrine of justification into the fore of medieval theological dialogue and in many ways framed the boundaries of the discussion for such
of his theological posterity. His arguments can therefore be cited by both sides of the Sixteenth Century debate for support since so much can be read into and out of his words. Consider the following:

And so extreme gilt compelling them, they fled to faith. Whereby, they might deserve the mercie of pardone, and helpe of our Lorde, which made heaven and earth, that charitie being, through the holy Ghost powred in their hartes, they might doo with love those things, which were commanded against the concupiscenses and lustes of this world.(5)

An argument can be made for either the Roman Catholic or the various Protestant views from these words. The reason being that Augustine never intended for his words to be proof for a centuries later debate. Again, in a separate work, Augustine writes that the word “justify”(6) in Romans 2:13 (“the doers of the law shall be justified”) might mean “hold just” or “account just” in the sense of forensic imputation.(7) As a whole, Augustine’s theology of justification is largely understood to have included the idea of being made righteous rather than a solely forensic declaration.(8) For the Catholic tradition subsequent to Augustine, therefore, to be justified was to become a righteous person. It is upon this conclusion that the author of A Treatie of Justification seizes and builds his argument.

This is especially evident in the author’s argumentation “that faith excludeth not Charity in
our justification, that is to saie, Faith alone justifieth no man, without the help and woorking of
Charitie.”(9) Augustine similarly wrote that “no faith profiteth, but only that which the Apostle defineth: to wit, that, which woorketh through loove and Charitie: and that the same faith without woorkes, can save no man, either without fier, or by fier.”(10) Though neither were advocating a justification by charity alone, both were advocating a theology of justification (if indeed such nomenclature can be applied anachronistically to Augustine) in which justification includes the restoration of what was lost in Adam: love, faith, hope and all the ethical implications contained therein. Clearly, the modern and largely Protestant bifurcation of justification and sanctification was an alien concept to Augustine, and one rejected by Trent and therefore by the author of the Treatie of Justification.

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4 A Treatie of Justification goes to often extraordinary lengths to link its argument with historical precedent, and especially with that of Augustine. Indeed, Augustine’s Of Faith and Workes is published together with the Treatie, along with the sections of Trent on justification. Augustine continues to play a large role in the discussion of justification and Roman Catholic and Protestant dialogue. For example, a Joint Ecumenical Commission on the Examination of the Sixteenth-Century Condemnations comprised of Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and even a few Reformed theologians produced The Condemnations of the Reformation Era (1986). The last of four principles of interpretation employed by the Commission in its discussions was, “When interpreting Trent, ‘in case of doubt, the view closest to Augustine must be preferred.’” Cited in Anthony N. S. Lane, Justification by Faith in Catholic-Protestant Dialogue (London: T&T Clark, 2002), 104.
5 Augustine, Of Faith and Workes (Farnborough, Hants., England: Gregg Press Limited, 1967 [1569 reprint]), 22. All quotations from this particular work by Augustine are from the version available to the author of this Treatie, which was also published together with it as an appendix.
6 At this point Augustine is infamously charged with ignorance of the Greek text. His understanding of the term was apparently based on the Latin iustificatio, rather than the Greek original dikaios.
7 Augustine, The Spirit and the Letter, 26:45; J. Burnaby (ed.), Augustine: Later Works. The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 8 (London: SCM Press, 1955) 228f.
8 Augustine’s The Spirit and the Letter appears to proclaim a doctrine of justification by faith, but in later Protestant terminology is more accurately a doctrine of sanctification by faith. See Lane, op. cit., 46.
9 Reginald Pole, A Treatie of Justification (Farnborough, Hants., England: Gregg Press Limited, 1967 [1569 reprint]), 36.
10 Augustine, op. cit., 24.

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This is the first of a series of posts on Cardinal Reginald Pole, the theologically schizophrenic Catholic theologian during the 16th Century Reformation. He was initially sympathetic with the Reformational perspective of justification by faith alone, and was placed in a difficult position when the Pope called on him to convene the Council of Trent. The subsequent Tridentine decrees regarding justification forced him to choose between his soteriological positions and his loyalty to Rome. He chose the latter and eventually became Archbishop of Canterbury under Bloody Mary. He never wanted to have to clarify his views, and never wanted the spotlight or a position of leadership. These things were thrust upon him, and the result was a broken man. If only his soteriology had trumped his ecclesiology instead…

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An uneasy and unsatisfied curiosity remains to the historians of Reginald Pole. At once resolute and timid, confident and diffident, deliberate and painfully reticent, Pole’s bewildering sojourn exhibits the complexity of themes, theologies, and personal pilgrimages that so plagued his conscience. These very inconsistencies, however, are what make Reginald Pole such an appealing subject for dissection. His life, career, and theology beg for a unity which so far has proven elusive to modern attempts at identifying a consistent unifying theme. One recent proposal is that Pole was a man of loyalty.(1) This is certainly true. But where did his loyalties lie and how did he reconcile opposing loyalties? And, perhaps most importantly, why? Pole was clearly a man of opposing loyalties. The crux of contemporary scholarship lies in the reasons for his choosing one loyalty over another. Indeed, this has become the foremost point of debate and the central theme for biographers.

Identifying Pole’s theology of justification in particular is a microcosm for the difficulty in understanding Pole in general. He was quite obviously reticent to express his views in written form, and did so only after much pressure from his superiors. The Tridentine statements on justification were overwhelmingly burdensome for the Cardinal, and both he and the Council grew increasingly unable to accept his nuanced positions. Neither side was satisfied with Pole and his constant reluctance to be assertive and unwavering. Eleven years after Pole’s death, a document entitled A Treatise of Justification (1568) and was attributed as having been “Founde among the writinges of Cardinal Pole.” The title page, nor anywhere else in the treatie, does not directly attribute the work to Pole’s authorship, but it clearly gives just such an impression.

The Treatie was unashamedly the offspring of Trent is its expression of the doctrine of justification. The title page indicates that the writings of Pole in which this work was found were actually “remaining in the custodie” of M. Henrie Pyning, the lately deceased secretary to the Cardinal. The clear implication is that it was intended to be received by the readership as a work of Pole, and to promote his deference to the Church of Rome over his former, and now condemned, views of justification.

Recent scholarship, however, has rightly questioned whether A Treatie of Justification was indeed authored by Pole. There would appear to be much circumstantial and critical evidence for this conclusion, the most obvious of which is that the work is not actually and directly attributed to him. Moreover, the form of the treatise is not typical for Pole in that it is overtly scholastic in its presentation as well as in its methodology.(2). It was more typical for Pole as a matter of both presentation and method, to be exegetical and to derive his argument primarily from the Scriptures. There are, however, several departures from the Tridentine theology of justification which, though not explicated at any length in the work itself, indicate some measure of uncomfortable discord with the Tridentine conclusions. It can reasonably be asserted, therefore, that although Pole possessed the work, it may not be directly attributable to his authorship with complete confidence.(3) However, attributing the authorship to Pole lends veracity to the notion that his ecclesiology did indeed trump his soteriology.

The work may be an expression of his fidelity to Rome, and therefore an explication of the aspects of the Tridentine theology of justification with which he agreed. One would not expect him to expound his now condemned perspectives on justification since his purpose may have been to illustrate his submission to Rome and not just an avoidance of the Inquisition. Incidentally, no reasonable theories have been proffered by those who tend toward the denial of the veracity of Pole’s authorship.

Be this as it may, the Treatie of Justification has not been adequately summarized and criticized in its relation to the Tridentine decrees, at least not in modern scholarship. This essay then, shall endeavor to provide a written comparison of the Treatie to the Tridentine soteriology, the question of authorship not withstanding. Though the various historians of Pole and Trent have their respective, and probably justified, conclusions on the dubious authorship of the Treatie, no significant work is in print which examines the content of the Treatie as its primary focus, even though such a comparison is not an overly burdensome task. This paper endeavors to meet that void.

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1. Dermot Fenlon, Heresy and Obedience in Tridentine Italy: Cardinal Pole and the Counter Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 283 “. . . loyalty, in the end, was his most signal virtue.”

2. This reason is most persuasive according to both Fenlon, op. cit., 198, and also to J. Fischer, “Essai Historique sur les Idees Reformatrices Des Cardinaux Jean Pierre Carafa (1476–1559) et Reginald Pole (1500–58),” Ph. D. Diss. (Paris: University of Paris, 1957), 364 n53. Although Fischer rejects Pole’s authorship of the work, he does argue that his views of justification were in reality not different from those of the Council. Fenlon disagrees quite strongly with Fischer at this point.

3. Fenlon rightly argues that for this reason the Treatie on Justification is not directly helpful in elucidating Pole’s theology of justification. Fenlon then turns his attention to “certain positive indications that Pole [did alter] his ideas on justification, so as to bring them into line with the decision of the Council.” Clearly, by 1554 he had indeed adopted the Tridentine soteriological decrees.

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Lament.

Weep, weep for those
Who do the work of the Lord
with a high look
And a proud heart.
Their voice is lifted up
In the streets, and their cry is heard.
The bruised reed they break
By their great strength, and the smoking flax
They trample.

Weep not for the quenched
(For their God will hear their cry
And the Lord will come to save them)
But weep, weep for the quenchers

For when the Day of the Lord
Is come, and the vales sing
And the hills clap their hands
And the light shines
Then their eyes shall be opened
On a waste place,
Smouldering,
The smoke of the flax bitter
In their nostrils,
Their feet pierced
By broken reed-stems…
Wood, hay, and stubble,
And no grass springing,
And all the birds flown.

Weep, weep for those
Who have made a desert
In the name of the Lord.

–Evangeline Paterson.

Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian View of the Church, The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, vol. 4 (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1982), p.205.

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I once had the privilege of taking a seminar with Hughes Oliphant Old, and of all that he has written this is my favorite paraphraph. Consider it this week’s Lord’s Day meditation.

In our evangelistic zeal we are looking for programs that will attract people. We think we have to put honey on the lip of the bitter cup of salvation. It is the story of the wedding of Cana all over again, but with this difference. At the crucial moment when the wine failed, we took matters into our own hands and used those five stone jars to mix up a batch of Kool-Aid instead. It seemed like a good solution in terms of our American culture. Unfortunately, all too soon the guests discovered the fraud. Alas! What are we to do now? How can we possibly minister to those who thirst for the real thing? There is but one thing to do, as Mary, the mother of Jesus understood so very well. You remember how the story goes. After presenting the problem to Jesus, Mary turned to the servants and said to them, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). The servants did just that, and the water was turned to wine, wine rich and mellow beyond anything they had tasted before. [Hughes Oliphant Old, Worship Reformed According to Scripture, p176]

This Lord’s Day refrain from turning the church into a culturally relevant Kool-Aid stand and watch as God creates and forms his people through the unadulterated Gospel.

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