Lecture 11: Review: From the Pre-Reformers to the English Reformation

The lecture, section by section

1. How to hold it all

   The review opens with study counsel: rather than memorizing fifty details per figure, fix one or two significant facts for each and learn what distinguishes similar figures from one another. Exact dates matter less than the shape of the story.

2. The pre-reformers in one pass

   Peter Waldo, converted through Scripture, had it translated into the common tongue; his poor men of Lyon and later Waldensians prized Scripture over the pope, and Waldo earned the nickname Peter by answering Rome the way Peter answered the Sanhedrin in Acts 5. Wycliffe, the morning star of the Reformation at Oxford, translated from the Vulgate, sent out the Lollards, and had his bones burned after death. Hus carried Wycliffe's ideas, above all the headship of Christ, to Prague, and was burned at Constance in 1415 despite a promise of safe passage. Savonarola preached free justification in Florence and died in the 1490s.

3. Humanists and Erasmus

   Lefevre in France, Reuchlin in Germany recovering Hebrew, and Colet in England represent the humanist recovery of the Scriptures in their original languages; Lefevre also met and influenced the young Calvin. Erasmus, prince of the humanists, wrote the Praise of Folly against Roman corruption, the unhelpful Freedom of the Will, and above all the critical Greek New Testament underlying both Luther's and Tyndale's translations.

4. The Lutheran Reformation reviewed

   Erfurt, Staupitz, Wittenberg, and the Ninety-five Theses of October 31, 1517, ninety-five reasons indulgences are wrong rather than a charter of Protestant doctrine. Cajetan, Eck at Leipzig, Leo X's excommunication, Worms before young Charles V, the Wartburg as Junker Georg, the Invocavit sermons against Karlstadt, Katie von Bora, and Luther's harsh condemnation of the Peasants Revolt.

5. Lutheran documents

   The Augsburg Confession of 1530, presented by Melanchthon while Charles V sought peace with Protestants to face the Turks, is the true charter summary of Lutheran theology. Consubstantiation names Luther's view of the real presence. His catechisms trained the ignorant, The Bondage of the Will answered Erasmus, and in 1580 the Formula of Concord, associated with Martin Chemnitz, gathered the earlier Lutheran teachings into harmony.

6. Trent and the Counter Reformation

   The Council of Trent, running from the mid 1540s to the mid 1560s, was Rome's formal answer to the Reformation, condemning and anathematizing Protestant beliefs in the clearest terms. The lecture notes the tension modern Catholics face reconciling Trent with the softer language of the Second Vatican Council, and the classroom discussion presses how those two councils can both stand.

7. The Zwinglian Reformation reviewed

   Wittenbach at Basel introduced Zwingli to Erasmus; Zurich, the Sixty-seven Articles, and the disputations followed, with Johann Faber sent by the bishop of Constance and soundly defeated. Bullinger succeeded Zwingli and became the communications hub of the second generation. Marburg in 1529, hosted by Philip of Hesse, united Luther and Zwingli on everything but the Table. The missionary Jacob Kaiser's burning helped ignite the Wars of Kappel, in the second of which Zwingli died.

8. The radicals reviewed

   Schwenckfeld the mystic; Karlstadt; von Hutten's Knights Revolt; the Zwickau prophets Storch and Stubner; Muntzer and the Peasants Revolt; Hoffman's Strasbourg prediction and Matthys and van Leiden's Munster catastrophe of 1534 and 1535, which stained all Anabaptists and prompted Calvin's Institutes. Menno Simons turned the German movement pacifist. The Swiss Brethren, Blaurock, Manz, Grebel, with Eberli Bolt the first drowned in Zurich, Hubmaier burned in Austria, and Michael Sattler, from the Nichols reading, killed at Rottenburg.

9. Geneva reviewed, with two additions

   Calvin, Cop, Basel, the Institutes, Farel's curse, Strasbourg with Bucer, Idelette, the consistory versus the Council of 200, Ameaux, Perrin and the Libertines, Servetus, Beza the successor, and Knox. Two additions: Martin Bucer quietly influenced all three branches, Lutheran, Reformed, and English, and Calvin held a spiritual presence view of communion, which he and Bullinger agreed was compatible with the memorial view, giving the Reformed tradition its shared doctrine of the Table.

10. England reviewed, with a corrected date

    Tyndale's translation and dying prayer; Henry's annulment crisis; and the Act of Supremacy, corrected in this lecture to 1534, as the official birth of the Church of England, with a second Act of Supremacy in 1559 naming Elizabeth supreme governor. Cranmer supplied a theology, a liturgy, and sermons; Edward's six years advanced reform; Bloody Mary martyred Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley among hundreds; Elizabeth's Acts of Uniformity settled Anglicanism's hybrid character; and Richard Hooker stands as a chief theological architect of Anglicanism. Hugh Latimer, of White Horse Tavern days, had once confronted Henry VIII to his face.

1. See it big and keep it simple: if you had to name the single most significant fact about Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin, what would each be, and why?

2. The review sets Trent beside the Second Vatican Council and lets the tension stand. Why does it matter whether official church councils can contradict one another?

3. Bucer shaped three branches of the Reformation and is barely remembered. What does his story suggest about the value of behind-the-scenes ministry?