Transcript Attempts to reform the church

Attempts at Internal Reform
Recommended source: Earle E.
Cairns, Christianity Through the
Centuries. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1996.
The Failure of the Clergy
• Between 1309 and 1439, the hierarchical
organization, with its demands for celibacy
and absolute obedience to the pope, and
the feudalization of the Roman church led
to a decline in clerical morals.
• Many priests took concubines or indulged
in illicit love affairs.
• Others, especially during the
Renaissance, enjoyed luxurious living.
The Babylonian Captivity
• Clement V, a Frenchmen chosen as pope
in 1305, was weak, of doubtful morality
and dominated by strong French kings.
– He moved to Avignon, France in 1309.
• Catherine of Siena (1347-80) strongly
urged Gregory XI to return to Rome to
restore and regain prestige for the papacy
as an independent international authority.
– Early in 1377, he ended the “Babylonian
Captivity.”
The Great Schism
• Urban VI was elected following Gregory
XI.
• His bad temper and arrogant manner led
to the election of Clement VII (1378).
– Clement moved back to Avignon.
– Both men claimed to be pope.
– Northern Italy, Germany, Scandinavia and
England followed the Roman pope.
– France, Spain, Scotland and southern Italy
followed the pope at Avignon.
Papal Taxation
• Supporting two papal courts became an
onerous burden.
– Income came from papal estates; tithes,
annates (payment of 1st year’s salary by
church official); the right of purveyance
(pope’s travel expenses in one’s area); the
right of spoil (monies of deceased upper
clergy); Peter’s pence (paid annually by laity
in many lands); the income from vacant
offices; and numerous fees.
The Rise of National States
• The king and middle class cooperated.
– The king and his national army gave security
which allowed the middle class to carry on
business in safety.
– The middle class gave money so the king
could run the state.
• This resulted in a strong centralized
nation-state able to defy the pope and
make the church subject to national
interests.
The Mystics
• Scholasticism contributed to the rise of
mysticism because it emphasized reason
at the expense of man’s emotional nature.
– Nominalism, which denied the real existence
of universals, led to an emphasis on the
individual as the source of reality and on
experience as the way to gain knowledge.
– They were also a reaction to troubled times
arising from things like the Black Death (134849).
Mysticism
• Latin mystics emphasized mysticism as
a personal emotional experience of
Christ.
– Catherine of Siena fearlessly denounced
clerical evils.
• Teutonic mystics stressed a more
philosophical approach to God,
sometimes leading to pantheism.
Mysticism
• Mysticism entered the Dominican order,
likely through Meister Eckhart (ca. 12601327).
– He believed only the divine was real and
taught a fusion of the human essence with the
divine during an ecstatic experience.
– He emphasized the need for Christian service
as the fruit of mystical union with God.
Friends of God
• A group of Dominicans known as the Friends
of God, headquartered in the Rhine Valley,
carried on Eckhart’s teaching.
• John Tauler (ca. 1300-61) emphasized an
inward experience of God as being much
more vital to the soul’s welfare than external
ceremonies.
• The little mystical volume German Theology
is usually associated with the group.
Brethren of the Common Life
• This less pantheistic and more practical
group formed in the Netherlands.
– John of Ruysbroeck (1293-1381), who was
influenced by Eckhart, influenced the mystical
movement in Holland.
– He helped Gerard Groote (1340-84) to
emphasize the NT in the development of the
mystical experience.
– A group of laymen lived in a house at
Windesheim under a rule in community and
devoted their lives to teaching and other
practical service.
Brethren of the Common Life
• Like the Friends of God, the Brethren of
the Common Life emphasized the
education of young people and built large,
excellent schools.
• The Imitation of Christ is associated with
the name Tomas a Kempis (1380-1471).
– It reflects a more practical emphasis.
– It renounces the world and asserts the need
of a positive love for Christ and service for
him in humble practical ways.
Developments in England
• English people resented sending money to a
pope in Avignon, France.
• The royal and middle class resented money lost
to the English treasury.
• Statute of Provisors (1351) banned appointment
by the pope of clergymen to offices in the
Roman church in England.
• Statute of Praemunire (1353) forbade the
practice of taking cases concerning clergymen
out of the English courts for trial in papal court.
• Payment of the annual tribute of 1,000 Marks,
which was started by John, was stopped by
Parliament.
John Wycliffe
• Studied and taught at Oxford.
• Until 1378, he wanted to reform the Roman
church by elimination of immoral clergymen and
stripping it of property, which he felt was the root
of corruption.
• In Of Civil Dominion (1376) he asserted a moral
basis for ecclesiastical leadership.
• God gave the use and possession of property,
but not the ownership, to church leaders as a
trust to be used for His glory.
John Wycliffe
• Failure on the part of ecclesiastics to fulfill
their proper functions was a sufficient reason
for the civil authority to take the property from
them and to give it to someone who would
serve God acceptably.
– John of Gaunt championed Wycliffe so the
Church of Rome did not dare touch him.
• Disgusted with the Captivity and the schism,
he attacked the authority of the pope in 1379
by insisting in writing that Christ and not the
pope was the head of the church.
John Wycliffe
• He asserted the Bible instead of the
church was the sole authority for the
believer and the church should model itself
after the NT pattern.
• Wycliffe made the Bible available to the
people in their own tongue.
– Complete NT manuscript in English by 1382
– Nicholas of Hereford completed the
translation of most of the OT in 1384.
John Hus
• Students from Bohemia came to England to study
when Anne of Bohemia married Richard II.
• John Hus read and adopted Wycliffe’s ideas upon
their return.
• He proposed to reform the church in Bohemia
along lines similar to Wycliffe.
• He was ordered to go to the Council of Constance
under a safe-conduct from the emperor.
• Hus refused to recant and was burned at the stake,
but his book De Ecclesia (1413) lived on.
Followers of John Hus
• The Taborites, the more radical of Hus’
followers, rejected all in the faith and
practice of the Roman church that could
not be found in Scripture.
• The Utraquists took the position that only
that which the Bible actually forbade
should be eliminated and the laity should
receive both bread and wine in the Mass.
Followers of John Hus
• Some of the Taborite group formed what
was known as United Brethren (c. 1450).
• The Moravian church developed out of this
group in Germany.
• One of the most missionary minded
groups in church history.
• Helped lead Wesley to the light in London.
Girolamo Savonarola
• In 1474, he became a Dominican in
Bologna.
• He began work in Florence 8 yrs. later.
• After a slow beginning, he began to
speak with immense popular
effectiveness which was heightened by
the general conviction that he was a
divinely inspired prophet.
Girolamo Savonarola
• The French invasion of 1494 led to a
popular revolution against the Medici
and Savonarola became the real ruler in
Florence.
• He sought to transform it into a
penitential city.
• A semi-monastic life was adopted by
many of the inhabitants.
• At the carnival season of 1496 and
1497, masks, indecent books and
pictures were burned.
Girolamo Savonarola
• He denounced the evil character of Pope
Alexander VI.
• The pope excommunicated him and
demanded he be punished, but his friends
were able to shield him for a time.
• In April, 1498, the fickle populace turned
against him and he was arrested, cruelly
tortured, hanged and his body burned by the
city government (Williston Walker, p. 285).
The Great Schism of 1378
• In 1378, Urban VI and Clement VII each
claimed to be the legitimate successor to
Peter, which resulted in the Great Schism.
– Europe began to be split ecclesiastically and
politically.
– Both men had been chosen by the college of
cardinals.
Proposing a Council
• Leading theologians of the University of
Paris proposed a council of the Roman
Catholic church should decide the matter.
• Marsilius of Padua (ca. 1275-1342) and
John of Jandun set forth a rationalization
for reform through a council in Defensor
Pacis (1324).
• They supported Louis of Bavaria against
the pope.
Proposing a Council
• Marilius believed the people in a state
and Christians in the church were the
repository of sovereignty and they could
through representative bodies elect the
emperor and the pope but the emperor
was over the pope.
• The church in general council guided by
the New Testament alone could proclaim
dogma and appoint its officials.
The Council of Pisa (1409)
• The council was called to end the schism in
the leadership of the Roman church, to
reform the church from within and put down
heresy.
• Benedict XIII was safely in control of
Avignon and Gregory XII held the papal
chair in Rome.
• The council, called by the cardinals, stated
that the cardinals had the authority to call it
and that it was competent even to call the
popes to account for the Great Schism.
The Council of Pisa (1409)
• It deposed both Benedict XIII and
Gregory XII and appointed as rightful
pope the man who became Alexander
V.
• The other two refused to step down.
• John XXIII was elected when Alexander
died.
The Council of Constance
(1414-18)
• Called by Sigismund, the emperor of the
Holy Roman Empire, and John XXIII to
end the Great Schism, end heresy and
reform the church in “head and members.”
• To frustrate John’s attempt to control the
council, over 350 high officials agreed to
vote as national groups of clergymen.
The Council of Constance
(1414-18)
• Each national group was allotted one vote
and a unanimous vote of the five nations
represented was necessary for binding
action by the council.
• The council declared its legality and its
right to supreme authority in the Roman
church.
• This decree which substituted conciliar
control of the Church of Rome for papal
absolution was given the title Sacrosanct.
The Council of Constance
(1414-18)
• Gregory XII resigned and, after some
negotiation, both Benedict XIII and John
XXIII were deposed by 1415.
• Martin V was elected by the council as
the new pope.
• They dealt with the problem of heresy by
condemning the ideas of Wycliffe and
burning Hus at the stake.
The Council of Constance
(1414-18)
• A decree of the council, called Frequens,
provided for the meeting of general
councils at stated times in the future to
keep order in the Roman church (after 5
years, after 7 years and then once a
decade).
• They would deal with the problems of
schism, heresy and reform.
The Councils of Basel and
Ferrar/Florence (1431-49)
• Unrest in Bohemia after the martyrdom of
Hus and the need for continued reform
brought about the Council of Basil (143149).
• Eugenius IV was deposed by the council
in 1439, just one year after the rival
council, which he had called, met at
Ferrara.
• Because of the plague, the rival council
was moved to Florence in 1439.
The Councils of Basel and
Ferrar/Florence (1431-49)
• The Council of Florence made an
unsuccessful attempt to reunite the
Greek and Roman Catholic churches.
• Unrest in Bohemia after the martyrdom of
Hus and the need for continued reform
brought about the Council of Basil (143149).
• Eugenius IV was deposed by the council
in 1439, just one year after the rival
council, which he had called, met at
Ferrara.
The Councils of Basel and
Ferrar/Florence (1431-49)
• Because of the plague, the rival council
was moved to Florence in 1439.
• The Council of Florence made an
unsuccessful attempt to reunite the Greek
and Roman Catholic churches.
• They declared the seven sacraments to
be accepted by the Roman church.
• This was promulgated by Eugenius IV in
a papal bull in 1439.
The Councils of Basel and
Ferrar/Florence (1431-49)
• The Council of Basel acknowledged
defeat by dissolving in 1449.
• The papacy thus reverted to the
despotism it had followed for centuries.
• Pius II in a papal bull entitled Execrabilis
(1460) condemned any appeals to future
general councils.
The Councils of Basel and
Ferrar/Florence (1431-49)
• The French clergy concurred with the French ruler
in the proclamation of the Pragmatic Sanction of
Bourges in 1438, which made the French church
independent of the pope, but which in turn put it
under the power of the state.
• The reforming council had saved the church from
the disorder of the Great Schism.
• The lack of success in securing effective reform
destroyed the last chance of reform of the Roman
Catholic church from within.
• The Protestant Reformation became inevitable.