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Melanchthon against Origen on Justification

ABSTRACT

Origen wrote the first great commentary on Romans, which had considerable influence in the Latin West. The subtle, multifaceted character of Origen’s exegesis has led to conflicting interpretations of his position, some seeing him as the first Pelagian, others as a witness to the sola fide. Melanchthon, in his lifelong preoccupation with Romans, attempted to come to grips with this slippery situation, praising Origen for some insights but criticizing him for betraying them in further developments. Revisiting this debate, with special attention to Romans 3.21-4.8, we attempt to grasp what is fundamentally at stake and to open a path to fruitful reading of Paul, Origen, the Reformers and the Council of Trent for today.

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Introduction

  Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560) is one of the more sympathetic figures in the history of Christian doctrine. As the protegé and right-hand man of Martin Luther (1483-1546), he was a co-architect of the Reformation. A temperate, lucid and irenic spirit, he brought clarity of thought and expression to Luther’s insights, and Luther’s own later writings bear marks of the influence of his disciple. The relationship between two such diametrically opposed temperaments cannot have been an easy one. Each respected charisms in the other that he felt to be lacking in himself. Melanchthon lacked Luther’s visceral sense of sin and grace, his eloquence, passion and decisiveness, and his popular touch. Yet he had an ‘administrative flair’ (Grane, 108) that Luther lacked, which in addition to his theological vision became very necessary to the internally divided Protestant community from 1525 on. Deeply respectful of established authority, both academic and political, and coolly rational in his approach to burning questions, he infused the Protestant movement with a pallid hue, a modern sobriety, contrasting with the vitality and abundance of Luther’s explosive personality, which was a product of the medieval world. 

  Unlike Luther, Melanchthon did not become involved in every dog-fight and abstained from personal abuse. Even in the Loci Communes of 1521, whose ‘coarse’ language he later regretted, when he denounces theologians whom he considers to have distorted the Gospel as sophists, insane, etc., this rhetoric is hardly more than a formal theological style. His moderation exposed him to attack from all parties. A poem found by his deathbed expresses his longing for heaven, where he will know at last the true relation between the human and divine natures of Christ and where he will be released from ‘the furies of the theologians’. On the other hand, he could be steely when it came to theological essentials: with Luther he took a hard line at the Marburg Colloquy of 1529; he approved of Calvin’s execution of Servetus for Trinitarian heresy; and he advised German princes to crush theological disagreements by force.

  Nevertheless, Melanchthon was the most ecumenical of the Reformers, placing Luther’s doctrine in its broadest theological horizons, and conscious that all the confessions were united in the biblical faith that was beginning to come under attack from nascent modernity. In an age of sectarian polemic, this made him seem shallow, uncertain and too quick to compromise. Now, after centuries of mistrust and neglect, he has emerged from under Luther’s shadow as the most promising bridge between Catholicism and Lutheranism. Interestingly, perhaps the first Catholic theologian to recognize in Melanchthon ‘a man we can do business with’ was Joseph Ratzinger in his seminars on the Augsburg Confession and De potestate et primatu Papae in Freising (1958-9, 1960-1) and Bonn (1962-3) (Wiedenhofer, 72).

  Melanchthon was not ordained (hence the lack of sermons in his output) and, even more surprisingly, he was not a doctor of theology or a professor of theology. As a Master in the faculty of arts at Wittenberg he was expected to pursue studies in one of the higher faculties, and he acquired a Bachelor’s degree in biblical theology in 1519. This obliged him to lecture on theology from October 1519, but after lecturing on Matthew, Romans, I-II Corinthians and John, he withdrew from teaching theology in March 1523, pleading his unripeness for the responsibilities involved. He felt that his personal spiritual experience was too insignificant, especially as compared with Luther’s. He resisted immense pressure from Luther, who wanted him to become a professor in the Faculty of Theology. He protested that his services as a teacher of humane letters would be of substantial benefit to theologians. He was intent on countering the desire of Wittenberg students to study the controversial questions of the hour about the nature of salvation without first acquiring a grounding in logic and classical grammar (Scheible, 373). He did resume his biblical lectures in 1526, but his major efforts were devoted to the ethics, psychology and physics of Aristotle (Scheible, 374). This educational investment may have seemed a divagation to the more excitable theologians of the time, but it added to the Reformation a precious ballast. Put into practice in preaching, catechesis, theological and philosophical study in churches, schools and universities throughout Europe, it was to give Protestantism its greatest strength. If the Lutheran church was built by men like Melanchthon it was build on men like Desiderius Erasmus (d. 1536), the prince of humanist scholars, to whom Melanchthon owed a lifetime debt though increasingly divided from him theologically (see Grane, 125). It is noteworthy that Melanchthon’s textbooks, like those of Erasmus, were used by the Jesuits, too, with the author’s name omitted.

  If theology is to remain fruitful and sane, it must be placed in the larger perspective of the humanities, and for this purpose some theologians must step aside from exclusive concentration on the discipline in order to explore the wider context of human and religious questioning that calls for the theological response. This must be done without a constant ulterior purpose of reducing the other disciplines to theological terms. The autonomy of other paths of learning must be respected, with a readiness to put theology in its place as one voice among others. Calvin, though a keen humanist, ‘consciously absorbed humanism in his theological system’ (Faber, 25), a subordination of culture to faith that Melanchthon resisted. Melanchthon was a university man, a protagonist in the humanist transformation of Wittenberg University, whereas there was no institution of higher learning in Geneva until 1559 when the Genevan Academy offered a reduced humanistic curriculum with a view to preparing students for the ministry (Maag, 63).

  That wide and free humanistic horizon is what gives Melanchthon’s specifically theological writings their well-aimed, functional quality. ‘His freedom from theology is the mark of the later Melanchthon’ (Maurer 2.423). ‘Melanchthon’s flight from theology... is a retreat into “secularity”, a retreat first made possible indeed by the Reformation, but which produced the type of the scholar who is interested in theology and at the same time criticizes it. Melanchthon was after Erasmus the first representative of this type’ (2.424). These statements could lead one to underestimate the degree to which Melanchthon’s theological writings are governed by a profound ecclesial conviction, enacted in forty-two years of service of the Reformation. His critical and secular aspect was not in conflict with his religious concern, as a thoroughly ‘godly’ man, who sought to live not a happy life but a righteous one, as he faced trials and disappointments in his domestic life (his marriage was not particularly happy, though he was at a loss after his wife’s death, not many years before his own), in his situation in Wittenberg (where he often felt isolated and frustrated, though refusing all offers to teach elsewhere), and in his health (he was sickly and prone to insomnia). Everything he writes about the guilt of the sinner before God’s law and the consolation of the Gospel promises has an authentic ring. The tone of his writings is one of moral gravity and their central concern is human sinfulness. But they are not depressing, for he constantly holds out the invitation to confide in a gracious God who forgives our sins in Christ and accepts our imperfect obedience. This is theology with a heartbeat, as Maurer himself stresses (2.115).

  Melanchthon’s religious experience was not as rich as Luther’s, and was therefore easier to cast in a regular and orderly pattern, centered on the lucid differentiation of the roles of Law and Gospel. The vast flood of Luther’s writings, which he often dashed off to the printer without even rereading what he had written (Friedenthal, 258), threatened to drown his central insight. Luther enacts a constantly mobile response to the Word of God, whether as judging the sinner (the opus alienum Dei; cf. Is. 28:21) or as conferring forgiveness of sins (the opus proprium Dei). The drama of this dialectic engages the reader intensely. But to state Luther’s theological principles in a clear and coherent way is no easy matter. Without Melanchthon’s clarity the Reformation teaching of sola fide, sola gratia, sola scriptura would not have been capable of enduring transmission.

  The systematic logical coherence of his position does not mean that it has lost its bearings in the experience of being addressed by the Word of God. Though Melanchthon’s hearing of the Word is not as lively or varied as Luther’s, his account of justifying faith refers to a series of existential events. It begins from the position of the human being confronted by the Law and brought to a consciousness of radical sinfulness and of the anger of God. Then comes the encounter with the consolation of the Gospel, which is not something we find within ourselves but something extra nos, conveyed to us by the preaching of the Word, and embraced in an act of trusting faith. All genuine theological knowledge is rooted in the experience of these events. In the introduction to the Loci Melanchthon expressed this as a principle of theological method, in what is perhaps his only famous utterance: ‘To know Christ is to know his benefits’ (Hoc est Christum cognoscere, beneficia eius cognoscere). It is because of this event-centeredness that Melanchthon is often invoked by those who would overcome metaphysical abstraction in Christian theology (Ritschl, Harnack, Bultmann). 

  Perhaps the lack of a teaching role allowed his theology to remain narrow, focusing on the essentials of the Pauline Gospel, as he revised his Loci and Commentaries from edition to edition. A parallel could be drawn with the labors of Athanasius in the fourth century. What the doctrine of Christ’s divinity as enunciated at Nicea was to Athanasius, the Pauline doctrine of justification was enunciated by Luther was to Melanchthon. For both theologians Christianity stood or fell by the single doctrine to which they devoted their career. Both are just short of obsessive in their constant harping on their theme, yet both remain serene, rational and eloquent as they patiently put forth their arguments again and again.

  Melanchthon enlarged the scope of the Loci as he came increasingly to see that the beneficia Christi could not be set forth without a solid doctrine of the Trinity and creation. Although he is sometimes blamed for giving Lutheranism a rigid, dogmatic cast, and losing the mobile dialectic of Luther’s responses to the biblical Word, his constant revisions reveal an intellectual flexibility that perhaps further strengthened the durable identity of his church. They suggest that he was constantly seeking to make the grounds of faith as secure as possible, but their inevitable effect was to introduce the appearance of wavering and uncertainty. Rather alarmingly, Melanchthon brought out revised versions even of the Augsburg Confession, and is said to have drawn from Luther the protest: ‘Philip, Philip, you do not do well to alter the Confessio Augustana so often; for it is not yours but the Church’s book’ (Barth, 44); though Luther also thought that the Confession was too bland and soft-spoken, as did Calvin (Barth, 14). Whereas in the Calvinist tradition Confessions were seen only as local and provisional witnesses to the faith, the Lutheran Confessions followed the model of the early Councils and claimed a universal and perpetual binding authority. Some theologians such as Hutter (d. 1616) and Hollaz (d. 1713) could even describe them as theopneustoi, divinely inspired (see BSLK 840; Barth, 5-11). As the author of the Augsburg Confession, Melanchthon no doubt knew that it was a product of rational reflection and diplomatic phrasing, perfectly capable of being improved. He also wrote the Saxon Confession 1551, the Wuerttemberg Confession 1552, and other lucid syntheses of doctrine, well suited for guiding catechesis.

  Whereas Erasmus was enthralled by Origen of Alexandria (c. 185-254), Luther and Melanchthon swore by Augustine (354-430), whom Erasmus set lower than Jerome (331-420), the patron of disinterested exegetical inquiry, which again must be pursued in an autonomous way, not subjected at every turn to dogmatic theology. Luther and Melanchthon retrieved Augustine’s polemic against Pelagius (c. 350-418), giving it a sharper and more dramatic cast. Where Augustine had insisted on the power and necessity of grace with a tendency to regard it as a quality infused into the soul, Luther and Melanchthon presented a series of events in which the human subject is caught up: first we are condemned by the Law, which reveals our sinfulness, and then we are acquitted by the Gospel, which invites us to embrace Christ in faith and to be clothed with his righteousness. Grace, as Melanchthon learned from Erasmus, is simply God’s favour (favor) to sinners (see Schäfer 1997); it is the action of divine forgiveness, which is also a revelation of ‘the righteousness of God’ (Rom. 1:17). The sanctification of the sinner, never complete in this life, is an effect that follows on the initial act of justification and that is not to be confused with it. The beginning of sanctification that follows on justification is so imperfect that it throws us back again and again on our initial situation of depending utterly on Christ’s word, ‘Thy sins are forgiven’, for our justification.

  I cannot pretend to trace the complex web of the relationships between Paul, Origen, Augustine, Erasmus, Luther, and Melanchthon, each of whom in his own right presents many puzzles to the interpreter. I cannot even offer an exhaustive account of Melanchthon’s relation to Origen, but only an initial exploration, based on sporadic study of Origen over the years and more recent acquaintance with the following texts of Melanchthon: Loci Communes 1521 and 1559 (StA II), the Augsburg Confession and its Apologia (BSLK), the 1527 Scholia on Colossians (StA IV), the Commentary on Romans (1532, StA V; 1540 and 1556, CR 15). Unless otherwise indicated I quote the 1540 edition, which contains the most references to Origen. I quote Origen in the recent English translation of Thomas Scheck [= S], with For Origen’s Commentary I give chapter and line references to Caroline Hammond Bammel’s handsome three-volume edition of the Rufinus translation, page references to Thomas Scheck’s English translation [= S], column references to Migne, Patrologia Graeca XIV [= M], and for the Greek fragments, page references to Theresia Heither’s edition [= H, VI]. 

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Erasmus

  Origen comes closest to the Reformation problematic in his Commentary on Romans, which is extant in an abridged Latin translation by Rufinus (with some fragments of the original and a substantial segment found at Tura in 1943). (For the wider context in Origen’s soteriology and doctrine of grace, see O’Leary 2003.) Following Paul’s argument, Origen tackles the theme of justification otherwise absent from his writings. But his Christocentrism tends to rob Origen’s account of grace and justification of the almost legal preciseness sought by Melanchthon, who had to battle against the insidious anxieties and blind spots of the medieval Church. Stressing that Christ is our righteousness, Origen sees justification by faith as simply the reception of Christ by believers. The character of Origen’s exegesis is well summed up by Robert Morgan: 

Clement and Origen interpreted Paul within the framework of their Christian Platonism, minimizing his ambivalence about the Jewish law and understanding his teaching on predestination (Rom. 9) as divine foreknowledge. Origen’s commentary (c. 247), exercised a huge influence over subsequent writers East and West. In his exegesis of Romans 5 he moved away from his earlier speculation on the fall and closer to later Western debate on original sin, but in general his Paul is the spiritual man rather than the justified sinner, and he owes more to Romans 8 than to chs. 5-7. He sees that 3.28 implies ‘faith alone’, but does not see this as antithetical to moral or religious practice. Origen is not a Lutheran. (Morgan, 134) 

  One needs only to add that Origen’s Platonizing vision has a concrete Christological content. The ‘spiritual man’ possesses Christ, and in Christ salvation and righteousness, a righteousness surely ‘inherent’ rather than ‘imputed’ (see S 1.37). Whatever the defects in his grasp of Paul, and whatever further loss of contour occurs in the Rufinus translation, Origen nonetheless engaged the Pauline problematic more closely than any before him and with such address that his views, as relayed by Rufinus, became an unavoidable reference, in praise or in blame, on both sides of the Pelagian controversy and its later sequels.

  Erasmus sought to repristinate some aspects of Origen’s thought on redemption for the sixteenth century, but with no success at the time. In the next century Origen did find favor among some Anglicans and Jesuits, moderates on the issue of grace, while radicals such as Jansenius (1585-1638) continued to see him as the worst enemy of grace and his writings as the fountainhead of Pelagianism. The chief sources for Erasmus’s Origenizing soteriology are the five editions of his Annotations on Romans (1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, and 1535) and the three books of his De Libero Arbitrio comprising the Diatribe (1524) in defence of the freedom of human choice and the Hyperaspistes or ‘Shield of the Diatribe’ (1526-7), his lengthy, unanswered reply to Luther’s De Servo Arbitrio (1525). Mainly concerned with establishing the text, the Annotations engage in a dialogue with a number of Fathers, which expands from edition to edition. Erasmus often follows Origen’s Commentary on Romans, though he sometimes chides Origen for his tendency to ‘philosophize’ the biblical text: ‘In these commentaries, you will find certain things interspersed here and there, though somewhat obscurely, concerning the salvation of the devil (in the third chapter), concerning souls that sinned before they were born, and many other things of this kind’ (Erasmus, 250). Erasmus deplores the inadequacy of Rufinus’s version of Origen’s commentary, which he attributes to Jerome in the first four editions: ‘From Origen, however, it is not so easy to gather what his view was, for he is, of himself, slippery in argument, [and is so] especially since we have him translated freely with many things added, removed, or changed’ (Erasmus, 142). However, comparison of Rufinus with the various Greek fragments has led to a higher appreciation of Rufinus’s work among scholars (see Verfaillie, 13-19: Roukema 1988:13). He rearranges and abridges, but remains true to the thought of Origen, which he presents in an attractive and readable form, ensuring its warm reception in the Latin Middle Ages and the sixteenth century.

  Origen and Erasmus agree on an exegetical point that was unwelcome to Augustinian thinkers. Erasmus was the first Western exegete to point out that the eph’hô in Romans 5:12 does not mean ‘in whom all had sinned’ but ‘in that all had sinned’. He notes that when Origen says that ‘the death which had come to him from the transgression consequently passed through to them as well, who were dwelling in his loins’ (V, 1.201-3; S 1.311; M 1010) he is not talking of original sin inherited by infants but is ‘showing why the blessed Paul makes neither the devil nor Eve the author of sin’ (Erasmus, 143), and the continuation of Origen’s text shows he is thinking of human imitation of the sin of Adam. Origen argues, in a way Erasmus finds ‘forced’, that ‘sin was passed down only in the world, that is, to those of a worldly spirit’ (see V, 1.215-32; M 1010). This is echoed by Pelagius, in a text ascribed to Jerome: ‘it passed to all those who lived in a human way, rather than divine... to all those who transgressed the natural law... They sinned through the example of Adam’ (Erasmus, 142).

Erasmus notes a suppressed discussion of pre-existence lurking behind the words: ‘A further question you should consider for yourself is: From where did sin enter this world?... Was it prior to him to whom it is said... “for this reason I cast you to the earth” (Ezek. 28:17). But it is not safe for us to discuss these things further…’ (V, 1.237-43; S 313; M 1011; Erasmus, 143, 156). (Similar allusions are found in V, 2.150-4; M 1025 and V, 4.30-2; M 1029; see Verfaillie, 26.)

  Erasmus himself believes that Romans 5 is not about original sin, since all the sins mentioned in Romans 1-4 are personal sins (Erasmus, 144). He follows Origen in seeing Rom. 5:12, 15 as referring not to original sin but to a sin of imitation. Sin is transmitted less by generation than by bad teaching; hence Christ’s regeneration comes with good teaching: ‘They are not prodded into the death of sin so much by nature as by instruction’ (non tam natura urgentur in mortem peccati quam disciplina) (V, 2.115; S 1.332; M 1024); the one who ‘is enabled to receive Christ’s grace... leaves behind Adam who had begotten or taught him unto death, and he follows Christ, who teaches him and gives birth to him unto life’ (capax Christi gratiae effici potest, et ibi relinquit Adam qui eum vel genuit vel docuit in mortem et sequitur Christum qui eum et docet et gignit in vitam) (V, 2.120-3; S 1.333; M 1024). Origen stresses that sin reigns with the consent of free will, which has surrendered itself to its bondage (V, 3.22-7; M 1026); the loss of the freedom not to sin seems to be freely incurred by each individual soul rather than being imposed by the sin of Adam (see III, 3.47-59; M 938-9). However, ‘in this very development, the idea of a state of sin, independently of every personal fault, is not at all absent from his mind, though relegated to the second level’ (Verfaillie, 27). The double remedy of Christ – baptism and teaching – heals the double dimension of sin, as affecting our nature and as transmitted by imitation (V, 2.124-37; M 1024). Nonetheless, ‘in seeking to explain all the passages of the Epistle in function of human freedom, Origen lends to St. Paul his own preoccupations. These even lead him to seek meanings manifestly contrary to those of the Epistle’ (Verfaillie, 37).

  Origen states that not all who commit sins, but only ‘many’ (Rom 5:19), are sinners in the full sense; it is one thing to sin, another to be a sinner (V, 5.18-44; M 1030). Origen further dilutes the Pauline vision of universal sinfulness by talking of degrees of sinfulness and of justification. ‘No one does good’ (Rom 3:12) is taken to mean that no one completely succeeds in accomplishing the good (III, 2 [2-5].232-52; M 934), or that we perform a shadow of good in obeying the Law, which is a shadow of future goods (ComPs 52:2; cf. Heb 8:5; 10:1; ComRm V, 1.600-43; M 1020-1). ‘The humanism he acquired from his Hellenistic formation prevents Origen from reading in Saint Paul the radical corruption of human nature, without however closing his eyes to our misery’ (Verfaillie, 39).

  Erasmus seems comfortable with such ideas and with Origen’s tendency to restrict Pauline polemic against the Law to the ceremonial laws of Judaism. Of course he is very happy with Origen’s defence of free will, which can lead Origen to assert human freedom even in commenting on the most ‘predestinarian’ sounding passages of Paul such as Rom. 11: ‘Each becomes either a good or a wild olive tree by the power of choice... he has the freedom of his will in himself by which he can be converted to the good’ (Sic ergo unusquisque ex arbitrii potestate aut bona oliva aut oleaster efficitur… habet enim in se arbitrii sui libertatem qua converti possit ad bonum) (ComRm VIII, 10.75-6, 86-7; S 2.178; M 1192-3).

  Faced with the polymorphous subtlety and open-endedness of the theologizing of Erasmus and of his ancient soulmate Origen, Luther and Melanchthon were obliged to ascribe to these theologians a set of fixed positions that could be attacked. Up to 1521 Luther’s references to Origen were not hostile (Dechow, 742-3). His reply to Jerome Emser in March 1521 accuses Origen of relying too much on unnecessary spiritual meanings of the scriptural text while letting the necessary literal meaning go. Luther’s most intensive engagement with Origen was in response to the Diatribe, in which we find Erasmus ‘casting bits and pieces of an ancient Origen into the contemporary fray, without appreciably advancing the Origenian arguments or applying them with precision to the biblical questions Luther raised’ (Dechow, 747). This is a temptation of the theologian with pretentions to scholarship, especially where Origen is concerned. Origen can often sound like an enlightened liberal theologian (in his Christology, for instance), suitable for sharing with contemporaries, but the huge gulf between his Ante-Nicene world and ours means that the grafting of his thought onto contemporary problems runs the risk of opportunism. Erasmus took up Origen’s view that ‘it is not God’s purpose to harden, but he acts with kindly intent, and the hardening follows as a result of the substance of evil present in the particular evil person, so that God is said to harden him who is already hardened’ (PArch III, 1.10). In De Servo Arbitrio Luther rejects this: ‘God is said to harden when he indulges sinners with his forbearance... Why, then, does God not say, “I will have mercy on Pharaoh” instead of “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart”’ (WA 18.704). Erasmus came back to this debate in his response, but nonetheless he made some Lutheranizing changes in the 1527 edition of his Annotations. As to Luther, he consigned Origen to irrelevance, occasionally growling at a caricature of Origen in his table talk. Erasmus met the same fate. The characterization of Erasmus as a skeptic and a slippery eel dispensed Luther from following his scholarly scruples and nuances. Only those with a strong and clear theological thesis had a right to be heard in the great debate.

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Melanchthon on Origen 

  In his earliest university lectures, on Matthew (1519-20), Melanchthon cites Origen in dependence on Erasmus, but pits Origen’s asceticism against Erasmus’s idea of Christian perfection (Maurer 2.108-9). Meanwhile Melanchthon deprecates Origenian allegorizing as early as 1520 (Meijering, 74) and opens the Loci Communes (1521) with an attack on him: ‘Remove from Origen the inconsistent allegories and the forest of philosophical sentences, and little will remain’ (Ex Origene si tollas inconcinnas allegorias et philosophicarum sententiarum silvam, quantulum erit reliquum) (StA II, 4). In 1531 we find Melanchthon accepting the charges brought against Origen by the heresiologist Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 403) (CR 12.1015-16) – again a convenient way of disposing of a slippery theological eel. Melanchthon was far less familiar than Erasmus with the Fathers. Indeed his lack of patristic learning was a source of unease among the followers of Luther. His review of the merits and demerits of the Fathers in De Ecclesia et de autoritate verbi Dei (1539), republished in the second edition of the Commentary on Romans (1540), is scanty enough. Here his judgment on Origen is a balanced one. His views on justification are given a mixed review, and he is cited as a witness such doctrines as the Trinity and to infant baptism (also in Loci Communes 1559 [StA II, 514] and Confessio Saxonica [StA VI, 127]). An incorrect reference to ComRm VI instead of V (M 1047) is seen by Meijering as ‘a not unusual carelessness’ (Meijering, 76).

  Melanchthon’s earliest study of Romans is found in the Theologica Institutio in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, a manuscript of 1519 used as the basis of lectures in 1520, and referred to in the dedicatory letter of the 1521 Loci Communes. It shows a great debt to Erasmus, his 1516 Annotations and 1517 Paraphrases. ‘Melanchthon learned simultaneously from Erasmus and Luther to see faith and justification as the theme of theology; and it is not yet clear in early summer 1519 from which of them he had received the most’ (Maurer 2.105). Romans provides the substance of the Loci Communes. ‘To concentrate the content of Romans on some central concepts (loci), as Melanchthon did, was something completely outside the field of vision of the biblical humanist’ (Maurer 2.105), nor did Erasmus work out a comprehensive argumentative and rhetorical structure of the Pauline text as Melanchthon did so painstakingly. The most comprehensive framework Erasmus finds in Paul is a quite Origenian and Platonist one: ‘the polar tension between inner and outer, spiritual and bodily’ (Maurer 2.106). Without naming Erasmus, Melanchthon contradicts him on two basic points: the Law in Paul is the moral law, never merely the Jewish ceremonial code; Pauline faith is not a historical opinion about Christ but the fiducia or trust that justifies the sinner (Maurer 2.106).

  Melanchthon would not have been familiar with Luther’s work on Romans, dating from before his arrival in Wittenberg. It was in studying Romans through the eyes of Augustine, especially the latter’s De Spiritu et Littera, that Luther attained a new vision of the Gospel as consisting in the forgiveness of sins. He first expounded this vision in his lectures on Romans of 1515-1516, where we can see his positions in the process of being formed. This work was lost for four centuries, and was first published in 1908. This much-discussed commentary sparked the twentieth-century renewal of Luther studies and is sometimes seen as one of Luther’s three major theological works, alongside De Servo Arbitrio (1525) and the great Commentary on Galatians (1531).

  Luther published Melanchthon’s Annotations on Romans in 1522 without the author’s permission, as part of his campaign to have Melanchthon resume the role of teaching theology. In his preface, Luther contrasts Melanchthon’s commentary with the meras nugas et ineptias of Origen and Jerome (WA 10.2:310). Luther himself did not return to the exegesis of Romans, leaving this to Melanchthon. Like the 1521 Loci, these Annotations strike the Lutheran notes from the start: the wrath of God, the uncleanliness of the heart, fides eriget et consolatur perterrefactas mentes (CR 15.441-2). The 1532 Commentary is intended to replace the Annotations, which Melanchthon disowned despite Luther’s praise. This commentary, in its three editions, was much more popular in the sixteenth century than that of Calvin, greatly admired by exegetes today. Calvin gives detailed, scholarly exegesis, whereas Melanchthon focusses on the theological questions raised by the Pauline text, the same questions as are dealt with in the Loci. 

  The 1540 edition states as follows the argumentum of Romans: ‘It contains the supreme and specific topics of Christian doctrine, discerning Gospel from Law and philosophy, and showing the benefits of Chirst, the gratuitous remission of sins, liberation from eternal death, the imputation of righteousness, the gift of the Holy Spirit and eternal life’ (Continet enim praecipuos et proprios locos doctrinae Christianae, discernit Evangelium a Lege et a Philosophia, monstrat beneficia Christi, remissionem peccatorum gratuitam, liberationem a morte aeterna, imputationem iusticiae, donationem Spiritus sancti et vitae aeternae) (CR 15.495). Vestigia of its teaching are found in the following Fathers: Ambrose [including Ps. Ambrosius, and perhaps also the Pauline commentator now known as Ambrosiaster], Basil, Augustine, Gregory [the Great], and Bernard. In the 1556 edition Prosper and Tauler are added, Gregory dropped (CR 15.803). The conscience of pious Christians attests that ‘we obtain the remission of sins and the imputation of righteousness not through our good deeds or through the law, but freely through Christ, and by faith, that is, by trust in the promised mercy through Christ’ (nos non propter nostra bene facta, non propter legem, sed gratis propter Christum consequi remissionem peccatorum et imputationem iusticiae, fide, id est, fiducia promissae misericordiae propter Christum) (CR 15.495). If these truths are lost there is no ‘secure consolation of consciences’ (firma consolatio conscientiarum) (CR 15.496).

  This reading involves no distortion of Paul, contrary to those who reduce Paul’s message to the common sense of moral philosophers: ‘They proudly mock what we say of original sin, recalling us to philosophy; and in sum they imagine righteousness before God, or what God’s law demands, to be nothing other than that discipline with which philosophy is content. Pelagius professed this view, but its seeds are scattered in the commentaries of Origen’ (Superbe derident ea quae de peccato originis dicimus, revocant nos ad philosophiam: Et in summa, non aliud imaginantur esse iusticiam coram Deo, aut quam lex Dei postulat, nisi illam ipsam disciplinam, qua contenta est philosophia. Hanc opinionem Pelagius professus est, sed semina sparsa sunt in commentariis Origenis) (CR 15.496). Pelagius is the arch-heretic, but the ultimate seeds of the evil can be found in Origen.

  The identification of divinely demanded righteousness with the demands of natural law as discerned by philosophy seems at first sight to be an innocuous idea, one that goes back to Origen’s precursor Philo of Alexandria, who found the moral teachings of the philosophers in a more perfect form in the Torah. Melanchthon sees it as a teaching that flatters the natural man: ‘And since it is an opinion agreeing with the judgment of human reason, which knows not the terrors and the true consolation in penitence, humans easily embrace this plausible account’ (Et cum sit opinio consentanea iudicio rationis humanae, quae non est experta vero pavores et consolationem veram in poenitentia, facile homines haec pithana amplectuntur) (CR 15.496). The idea that the content of the Torah is the same as that of natural law seems to imply for Melanchthon that observance of the Torah can be attained by natural efforts and that righteousness is obtained by works, quaerendam esse iusticiam per opera legis (CR 15.497). But the logical connection of the three ideas is not apparent. Fallen nature may be incapable of fulfilling the natural law without the aid of grace. However, Melanchthon believes that in practice the identification of God’s law with the law of nature as discerned by philosophical reason leads to a whittling down of the law’s demands and a confidence that humans can fulfill the law unaided. 

  After an attack on Origen’s idea that justifying faith is a synecdoche for all the other virtues – to which we shall return – Melanchthon discusses justification (499-513), grace (513-4), faith (514-21), and good works, the always imperfect obedience shown by the justified sinner (521-37), with a number of glances at Origen. Origen had an unclear grasp of what the Law requires: perfect holiness, which means that none can meet its demands. ‘To this crowd belong Origen and his followers, who see only the veiled face of Moses, since they teach only a carnal righteousness’ (Maneant in hac turba et Origenes et caeteri qui eum sequuntur, et velatam Mosi faciem intueantur, cum non aliam iusticiam, nisi carnalem doceant) (CR 15.500). Limited by human reason, they can neither experience the recognition of sin and the wrath of God, revealed by the Law, nor understand the consolation of the Gospel, the promise of the benefits of Christ. There is irony in the allusion to 2 Cor. 3:13-16, the very text that Origen cites again and again as the charter of his allegorical exegesis.

  In the corresponding discussion in 1556 of justification (CR 15.799-812), with notes on the terms law (812-3), sin (813-4), grace (814), justification (814-5) and faith (815-6), we have this reference to Origen: ‘strong arguments to refute corruptions, whether Origenian or recent’ (firma argumenta ad refutandas corruptelas, seu Origenicas seu recentes) (CR 15.807). These general discussions are close to those in the Loci of 1535, reproduced with only minor changes in the editions of 1543 and 1559. Here again Origen is an implicit target: ‘they make light of the sin in nature, and think that the Law of God requires only discipline. Hence they imagine that nothing distinguishes philosophical from Christian righteousness’ (extenuant peccatum in natura, cogitant Lege Dei tantum requiri disciplinam. Deinde imaginantur nihil interesse inter Philosophicam et Christianam iustitiam) (StA II, 353). He is named explicitly as well: 

But when the Gospel proclaims this understanding of Law and the recognition of sin, many, inflated with the presumption of wisdom, thank that these are Stoic hyperboles, which can be dismissed. Since discipline is in itself sufficiently difficult, they contend that nothing more is required, and that such diligence merits remission of sins and is righteousness before God. To these human imaginations did Origen and the monks twist the teaching of Paul. (Sed cum de hoc intellectu Legis et de agnitione peccati concionatur Evangelium, putant multi tumentes persuasione sapientiae has esse hyperbolas Stoicas, quibus nihil opus sit. Sed cum disciplina per sese satis difficilis res est, contendunt nihil amplius requiri et hanc qualemcunque diligentiam mereri remissionem peccatorum et esse iustitiam coram Deo, et ad has humanas imaginationes Origenes et Monachi male detorserunt Paulum.) (StA II, 357) 

  There is again more than a touch of caricature here. It was convenient to erect Origen as a puffed-up intellectual, insensitive to the urgency of the Gospel and content with a lazy lip-service to its demands. Inauthentic and insincere, the Alexandrian had lost the biblical sense of faith as fiducia. He is contrasted with good theologians who had a sound faith, though they may have expressed it clumsily: ‘I say that later many writers, such as Origen and others, passed on another, inauthentic kind of doctrine, but some more learned had the same view as us, even if these too sometimes spoke more suitably, sometimes less’ (Fateor autem postea plerosque scriptores, ut Origenem et alios, tradidisse aliud genus doctrinae et insincerum, sed aliqui eruditiores nobiscum revera sentiunt, etsi hi quoque alias commodius alias incommodius loquuntur) (StA II, 367). The 1540 commentary lists these eruditiores as Augustine, Chrysostom, Bernard (CR 15.519-20). The Reformation needed a perspicuous account of church history, with clearly identifiable heroes and villains. Origen was of more service as a villain than as a hero, though Melanchthon will pick out one or two statements from him that might almost have served as a passport to the camp of the heroes. 

.

Against Origen’s Platonism 

  Luther was sensitive to a disparity between the Gospel and the massive importation of Greek metaphysics into Christian theology, notably in Pseudo-Dionysius, whom he denounced as ‘Platonizing rather than Christianizing’ (WA 6.562), and in the scholastics, who failed to see that the ethics of Aristotle is ‘the worst enemy of grace’ and who believed that ‘without Aristotle one cannot become a theologian’, whereas in reality ‘one cannot become a theologian unless one does so without Aristotle’, for ‘all of Aristotle is to theology what darkness is to light’ (WA 1.226). Melanchthon gave a historical cast to these insights, pointing out that Christian doctrine was adulterated by Platonic philosophy immediately after the beginnings of the Church (Loci 1521, I 6). He taught Luther to see ‘the time of the truth-and-error mixture between the apostles and Augustine’s alleged return to the apostolic sources’ as what he calls (in 1548) the aetas Origenica (CR 11:786). 

  In his Commentary on Romans Melanchthon criticizes Origen’s Platonist outlook, sometimes ascribing to him Platonizing exegeses that he does not in fact give. Commenting on the word ‘slave’ in Rom. 1:1, Origen wrote: ‘He serves Christ, then, not in a spirit of slavery but in the Spirit of adoption because being a slave of Christ is more distinguished than any freedom’ (ComRm I, 3 [1].12-14; S 1.60; M 837-8). He went on to ask: ‘Who is able to obtain such complete freedom that he no longer serves the flesh in any respect whatsoever?’ (I, 3 [1].61-3; S 1.62; M 840). Melanchthon finds an inappropriate interiorizing twist in this: ‘This rhetoric about the servitude and freedom of conscience is untimely, for Paul is not speaking here about private servitude or freedom of conscience but about his office’ (hic intempestive rhetoricatur de servitute et libertate conscientiae, cum Paulus hic non loquatur de privata servitute aut libertate conscientiae, sed de officio) (StA V, 57). From the start, it is implied, Origen misses the scope of the Pauline text as a formal, coherent exposition of the core Christian teaching. In 1540 Melanchthon rewrites his criticism inaccurately: ‘Origen here ineptly rhetoricizes about liberation from ceremonies’ (Origenes hic inepte rhetoricatur de liberatione a ceremoniis) (CR 15.547-8). There is no such discussion in Origen. 

  Origen tends to conceive faith as an interior, invisible disposition: ‘faith is in secret yet works are openly visible’ (ComRm IV, 1.42; S 1.238; M 960). His preoccupation with the contrast of letter and Spirit, sensible and intelligible occasionally distracts him from Paul’s argument, as when he interprets ‘the flesh’ in Rom 8:3 as a reference to literalism (VI, 12.24-6; S 2.48; M 1094, criticized by Melanchthon, CR 15.750). Faced with such a text as Rom. 7.14, ‘the law is spiritual’, Origen was bound to invoke his habitual theme of the contrast between a carnal, literal understanding of the Old Testament and a spiritual, allegorical one: ‘This statement applies well to the law of Moses. For that law is a spiritual law and a life-giving Spirit for those who understand it spiritually. But the one who understands it in a fleshly way recalls it as a law of the letter and a letter that kills’ (VI, 9.41-4; S 2.37; M 1085). Taking ‘law’ to refer here not to the natural law but to the written law of Moses, he stresses that it must be spiritually understood, which involves an allegorical or typological reading. The existential significance of the law as a call to perfect holiness is missed. Melanchthon correctly criticizes this: ‘The interpretation of Origen and others who think that “spiritual” signifies the same things as “allegorical” is alien to what Paul says here’ (Aliena est igitur ab hoc dicto Pauli interpretatio Origenis, et similium, qui spirituale putant significare idem quod allegoricum). But his own interpretation is rather flat: ‘The law is spiritual, that is, not merely political, but requiring spiritual and perfect obedience’ (Lex est spiritualis, id est, non tantum politica, sed requirens spiritualem et perfectam obedientiam) (CR 15.650). Paul does not oppose ‘spiritual’ to external and civil law, but to ‘the flesh’ that is hostile to the demand of holiness.

  Origen reads 7:15, ‘I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate’ as referring to the losing battle between the natural law and the passions in one who is not yet spiritual and whose will is not yet strong enough that he can resolve to fight unto death (VI, 9.70-3; S 2.38; M 1086). He reads Rom. 7 in a gradualist sense, as describing the inner contradictions of the still imperfect Christian. He does not capture the drama of the total impotence of the sinner unless released by grace. Paul, in Origen’s reading, portrayed the inner struggle in order to show ‘from how many evils and from how many kinds of death Christ has rescued us’ (VI, 9.186-7; S 2.42; M 1089). The Apostle was not speaking in his own person but empathetically portraying the situation of the sinner. One who would see Paul as referring to himself ‘smites every soul with hopelessness. For there would then be absolutely no one who does not sin in the flesh’ (VI, 10.10-13; S 2.44; M 1091). Origen stresses the achievement of moral perfection, grasped in Platonic terms as triumph over carnal desires, rather at the expense of ongoing dependence on grace. Melanchthon, who considers the persistence of concupiscence even in the baptized as a condition of sin, which cannot be removed in this life, writes: ‘This whole passage teaches what the corruption of nature is… Some elude this, pretending that Paul is speaking here not in his own person, not about the converted and holy, but about the ungodly. This quibble must be rejected. Just as David speaks of himself and all the saints when he says “no living person is justified in your sight”’ (Hic totus locus declarat, qualis sit corruptio naturae... Haec eludunt aliqui, et fingunt Paulum hic loqui, non de sua persona, non de conversis et sanctis, sed de impiis. Haec cavillatio repudianda est. Ut enim David de se et de omnibus sanctis loquitur, cum ait: Non iustificabitur in conspectu tuo omnis vivens) (CR 15.651). That this is directed against Origen is confirmed by the reference to David, cited by Origen as an example of a saint speaking in the person of sinners, though he quotes a different text from the Psalms (ComRm VI, 9.188-96; S 2.42; M 1089-90). Melanchthon embraces the very view that Origen thinks would lead us to despair, that even the saints are not free of carnal sin: ‘concupiscence is a sin by its nature even in the saints, but is overlooked in those who devoutly believe’ (quod concupiscentia etiam in sanctis sit peccatum sua natura, sed piis credentibus condonatur) (CR 15.652). Origen does not want to recognize this sinfulness, thereby being numbered among those of whom Melanchthon writes: ‘These inner sins the complacent and ungodly do not see; hence they make light of original sin and concupiscence’ (haec peccata interiora non cernunt securi et impii, ideo extenuant peccatum originale et concupiscentiam) (CR 15.652). The situation of the Christian is that of a sinner who constantly relies on divine pardon, not of one who is free of sin and needs divine pardon no longer. Origen is again the target in the following: ‘we must reprehend the false imagination of those who claim that Paul is assuming the foreign persona of the ungodly in this place and who deny that the struggle here described fits the person of the converted and sanctified, as if in the sanctified no traces of sin remained’ (hic reprehendenda est falsa imaginatio illorum, qui fingunt Paulum assumere alienam personam impii in hoc loco, et negant hoc certamen, quod hic describitur, convenire in personam conversi et sanctificati: quasi in sanctificatis nullae sint reliquiae peccati) (CR 15.652-3). 

  The phrase ‘I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self’ (Rom 7:22) means more than the mind’s approbation of the natural law: ‘in the ungodly, though there be some knowledge of the law, yet it is not that willing or delighting in the law of God that is spoken of here. For these words, “I delight in the law of God”, are not to be understood in a cold way’ (in impiis etiamsi est noticia aliqua legis, tamen non est illud velle, aut delectari lege Dei, de quo hic loquitur. Non enim frigide intelligenda sunt haec verba: Delector lege Dei) (CR 15.653). The one who understands these words coldly is again Origen: ‘The person portrayed is not completely estranged from good things but he has begun, at any rate, to seek the good with purpose and will, yet has not yet been able to attain it in reality and deeds’ (VI, 9.92-5; S 2.39; M 1087). Such a mild way of talking about sin is abhorrent to Melanchthon. The image of the sinner progressing towards perfection in a continuous manner, rather than recognizing his incapacity for accomplishing the good and his need to rely on divine forgiveness, is redolent of paganism to Melanchthon’s sense. Even if applied to the progress of the justified sinner in producing good works, its tone would be insufficiently marked by fear and trust, timor et fiducia. Certainly, Melanchthon, and Augustine before him, makes us sense a certain superficiality in Origen’s bland attitude to the Christian’s moral struggle: ‘To be sure he both reflects to himself and decides, for example, that he should not become angry, and he resolves this in his will; but since the vice of wrath has been dominant in him due to continuous practice and long-standing habit, it opposes even the will and purpose, and a violent outburst of rage results’ (VI, 9.97-102; S 2.39; M 1087). Origen has ascetic earnestness, but lacks tragic vision. The interior homo who delights in the law, as Melanchthon points out, is not the Platonic soul of Origen’s interpretation but ‘signifies man insofar as he is renewed by the Holy Spirit, that is, insofar as he has true fear and true trust. Likewise, “mind” does not signify merely our knowing part, but both our knowing and desiring part insofar as it is renewed by the Holy Spirit’ (significat hominem, quatenus renovatus est Spiritu sancto, hoc est, quatenus habet verum timorem et veram fiduciam. Ita et mens non significat hic tantum partem cognoscentem, sed utramque partem, cognoscentem et appetentem, quatenus renovata et Spiritu sancto) (CR 15.653). Likewise the external man is not the flesh only but ‘even the higher potencies, reason and will, insofar as they are not renewed’ (etiam potentias superiores, rationem et voluntatem, quatenus non sunt renovati) (CR 15.654). Origen tends to cherish a cocoon of Platonic spiritual interiority, whereas Lutheran salvation is extra nos, in Christ, and throws the whole person into a relationship to Christ and the Spirit that cannot be mapped in Platonic terms. The Platonic map leaves the individual the master of the inner sphere and identifies externality with unreality. The Pauline message dislodges us form that inner sanctum and takes us out of ourselves into a world of living relationships.

On Rom. 12:1, Melanchthon remarks: ‘Origin frigidly refers this passage to chastity alone, whereas Paul wants us to subject every kind of affect in our whole life and to embrace all good works and all trials to be borne in our confession’ (Origenes frigide interpretatus hunc Pauli locum de sola castitate, cum Paulus hic voluerit nos subicere omnibus affectuum generibus in tota vita et complecti omnia opera bona et omnes aerumnas in confessione perferendas) (StA V, 293). Origen says of ‘reasonable service’ (or ‘rational worship’; logikê latreia) of God that ‘it should be offered with the body of a rational human being and your bodies, rather than those of animals, should become a sacrifice of God and be placed upon the sacred altars’; this is done by ‘those who put to death their own members from the incentive of lust and rage’ (IX, 1.28-9; S 2.192: M 1203). Though he sees virginity as the model of such a spiritual sacrifice he agrees that those who are married can also make their bodies a living sacrifice (IX, 1.74-81; S 2.194; M 1205). He does refer to the other virtues and good works, as he talks of overcoming pride, greed, deceptive thoughts and words, but it is true that an overriding concern with chastity narrows the Pauline vision. This focus on preservation of purity may chime with the Platonist sense of inviolate interiority opposed to diminishing exteriority. Moreover, where Melanchthon stresses the total, existential character of the divine claim, Origen speaks of virtues and vices in a somewhat more extrinsic manner. Melanchthon objects to Origen’s definition of ‘rational worship’ by contrast with animal sacrifices; it should rather be contrasted with worship that does not understand God, i.e., that is ‘without fear of God and without faith in mercy. The “rational service” is a service of the mind, which knows or discerns God through the Word, that is, which has fear and is built up by faith’ (sine timore Dei et sine fide misericordiae. Est enim ‘rationalis cultus’ cultus mentis, quae Deum intelligit seu cernit per verbum, h. e. quae habet timorem et fide erigitur) (StA V, 295). But Origen’s flat reading may be closer to the sense of the Greek word logikê. In this parenetic section of the letter, Paul was hardly thinking of justification and the dialectic of timor and fides, which would not be aptly described as logikos. 

  In reconnecting with Paul, Luther and Melanchthon shook Christian piety out of its Platonic slumbers. Though Origen is the most foundational figure in Christian Platonism, it would be unfair to say of him, as Luther said of Pseudo-Dionysius, that he is ‘Platonizes rather than Christianizes’. He operates a thorough conversion of Platonist material into biblical terms and his writing can be seen to some extent as overcoming Platonism. Nonetheless, the Reformation vision disrupts any complacent reception of Origen, and obliges us to practice a critical discrimination between the Platonist and biblical elements in his thought. That critical revision is still proceeding, slowly, in the world of Origenian scholarship. He foists this on Origen’s text in his 1532 comment on Rom. 5:1: ‘Origen corrupted the reading and transformed the doctrine of the Gospel into law in his way: “Justified by faith, let us have peace.” And here “peace” is interpreted as referring to the offices of benevolence towards human being, as if Paul were concerned here with nothing else than transmitting precepts on behavior. But it is clear that Paul is still speaking of faith and the conscience acting before God’ (Origenes corrupit lectionem et transformavit evangelii doctrinam in legem hoc modo: ‘Iustificati fide pacem habeamus’. Et hic ‘pacem’ interpretatus est de officiis dilectionis erga homines, quasi nihil hic agat aliud Paulus, nisi ut praecepta de moribus tradat. Sed constat Paulum adhuc de fide contionari et de conscientia agente cum Deo) (StA V, 156). In 1540 he says that we have peace with God through faith and not in reason of our obedience: ‘Origen twists this passage to refer to peace toward men and the offices of charity, and corrupts the reading. We have peace, that is, let us be of peaceable behavior towards others’ (Origenes detorquet hunc locum ad pacem erga homines, et ad officia dilectionis, et depravat lectionem. Pacem habemus, id est, simus placidis moribus erga alios) (CR 15.611). Origen then would seem to have lacked all sense of Christ’s benefit in putting the sinner at peace with God. Here Melanchthon in captious and inaccurate. Origen’s text had echômen (‘let us have’) not echomen (‘we have’), so his reading of the verse as a parenetic injunction is understandable. The same is true of all the Fathers with the exception of Ambrosiaster. Nor does the parenesis begin with talk of peace with one another, but rather with putting an end to our hostility to God; the interpretation followed by most of the Fathers (see Schelke, 151-2). Moreover, the ethical lesson comes from a sense of the blessing of peace that justification by faith brings: ‘He is very openly inviting the one who has grasped what it means to be justified by faith and not by works to “the peace of God which surpasses all understanding” [Phil. 4:7], in which the sum of perfection consists’ (IV, 8.5-8; S 1.279; M 988). Origen delights in this peace of conscience, and he immediately refers it to Christ’s work of changing us from enemies of God into friends: ‘We who were once God’s enemies by following that enemy and tyrant, the devil, now most assuredly have peace with God, if we have thrown down the devil’s arms and have taken up the sign of Christ and the banner of the cross’ (IV, 8.11-14). The first parenetic point he makes is not that we should have peace with our neighbors but that we should abjure the ‘wisdom of the flesh’ (Rom. 8:7) that is hostile to God (both in the sense of our desires and in the sense of a carnal understanding of Scripture) (IV, 8.21-9; M 988-9). By turning back to sin we would undo Christ’s work of reconciliation (IV, 8.44-7; S 1.280; M 989). Only then does he say that if we are without dissension among ourselves we will have peace with God (IV, 8.51-2), an obiter dictum on which Melanchthon pounces. Origen says that the peace of Christians is experienced in the midst of an ongoing struggle against the devil (IV, 8.58-66; S 1.281; M 990); in contrast, one may find Melanchthon’s insistence that ‘it is necessary that there be in the pious terrors and penitence’ (necesse est existere in piis terrores et poenitentiam) (CR 15.612) rather morose; even when he says of afflictions that ‘they are not signs of the wrath of God but signs of God’s good will’ (quod non sint signa irae Dei, sed signa bonae voluntatis Dei) (CR 15.614) the focus on sin creates a somber mood. Origen does continue in what sounds like a rather Pelagian vein, saying that we can enter by the gate of Christ that gives access to this grace only if we are truthful, righteous, humble, meek. Grace is earned by virtue, it seems: ‘If there is someone who... wants to have access through our Lord Jesus Christ to the grace of the Lord in which Paul and those who are like him claim to stand, he must be purged from all these things we have recorded above (IV, 8.82-6; S 1.282; M 990). But the meaning is that to stand in virtue, which entails standing in humility and in faith, is to stand in grace: ‘If there be another, who would work harder, who boasts in his weaknesses... and amidst all these things should stand constant in faith, he will likewise be said to stand in grace’ (IV, 8.96-100). Origen can be praised for having a concrete vision of grace here, derived from 2 Cor. 11:16-33.

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Faith and Works (Romans 3:21-8) 

  (a)  ‘Apart from the Law’

  Commenting on the words sine lege in Romans 3:21, Melanchthon says in the 1556 commentary: 

Origen becomes stuck here and cannot clarify the passage, as he debates about how the righteousness of the Gospel is shown without law. An error at the beginning produces many more later… Since Origen does not weigh how great a thing the law of God is, and how far this miserable nature is from that conformity with God which the law demands, and how great an evil sin is, and since he does not rightly discern law and Gospel, he falls into these delusions—that the Gospel is a new law, that the righteousness of the Gospel is the works commanded in the legal utterances, which are constantly recited by Christ and the apostles… Origen and many others effect a pernicious mutilation of the statement, “The righteousness of God is revealed apart from law”, taking Paul to refer not to the whole law but to be saying, “apart from law, namely, the ceremonial and judicial law”’ (Haeret in hic loco Origenes, nec potest eluctari, disputans, quomodo iusticia Evangelii manifestata sit sine lege: sed error in principio parit deinde alios multos errores... Cum non consideret Origenes, quanta res sit lex Dei, quam procul absit haec misera natura ab illa conformitate cum Deo, de qua lex concionatur, et quantum malum sit peccatum, nec recte discernat legem et Evangelium, delabitur ad has hallucinationes, Evangelium esse novam legem, et iusticiam Evangelii esse opera, quae praecipiuntur in dictis legalibus, quae passim recitantur a Christo et Apostolis... Origenes, et alii multi in dicto: Iusticia Dei revelata est sine lege, fecit perniciosam mutilationem: Sine lege, scilicet ceremoniali et iudicali, nec interpretatur Paulum de tota lege). (CR 15.860-1; see also StA V 117) 

  In fact, Origen interprets sine lege as referring to natural law and contests the initial impression that it refers to the law of Moses (non ad naturae sed ad Mosei legem referri) (III, 4 [7].9; M 941). ‘Contrary to Paul’s meaning, sine lege [Rom. 3:21] according to him excludes only the natural law, for Christ was predicted and figured in the Old Testament’ (Verfaillie, 43, quoting III, 4 [7].117-22; M 944). Law is used in two senses in the Pauline verse: sine lege refers to the law of nature, testificata a lege to the law of Moses (an unlikely exegesis, to be sure). ‘What he is saying, then, is this: It is not the case that, just as the knowledge of sin comes through the law, so also the disclosure of God’s righteousness comes through law. But God’s righteousness is disclosed apart from law. For the law of nature was able to reveal the nature of sin and bring to light the knowledge of sin; but the righteousness of God surpasses and rises above whatever the human mind can scrutinize by natural senses alone’ (ComRm III, 4 [7].49-54; S 1.210; M 942). Melanchthon’s accusation that Origen sowed the seeds of the Pelagian attitude, which contents itself with the kind of righteousness that philosophy teaches, is refuted by this emphasis on the unfathomable depth of divine righteousness which the law of nature is unable to manifest.

  Only in the following phrase testificata a lege et prophetis does he see a reference to the law of Moses, pointing out that in the Greek the first ‘law’ has a definite article and the second does not (III, 4 [7].92-116; S 1.212-13; M 943-4). It appears that Melanchthon attributes to Origen the sort of error he imagines to be typical of him. This illustrates the pitfalls of a dismissive hermeneutics, which are particularly to be feared in dealing with an author as subtle and soft-spoken as Origen (or Erasmus). (In the 1532 commentary the error here denounced is not attributed to Origen. The notes in StA V, 117, 125 find it in Ambrosiaster, Jerome and Catholic adversaries, and Melanchthon may have misremembered its source.) The law of Moses, Origen adds, can indeed testify to divine righteousness – but only when it is spiritually read (by Christians) (III, 4 [7].104-6; M 944). That last twist is alien to Paul’s reasoning here.

  Origen’s need to differentiate two meanings of law here is premised on the impossibility of divine righteousness being manifested apart from law if it is witness by the law; he does not have the dialectical idea that the weakness of the law or the bondage it reveals could itself be a testimony to a righteousness beyond law. The contrast of law and Gospel does not acquire the dialectical tightness is has in the Reformers, possibly because Origen is more scrupulous than Paul himself about the consistency of Paul’s use of the term ‘law’ and so fails to impose a sweeping vision on this point.

  In stating positively what the righteousness that is revealed consists in, Origen speaks of Christ as our righteousness (I Cor. 1:30), ‘disclosed apart from the natural law, but not apart from the law of Moses or the prophets’ (III, 4 [7].121-2; S 213; M 944). This righteousness hardly consists in fulfilling a new set of precepts, as Melanchthon reports, unwisely following his hunch that Origen is just the kind of moralistic thinker who would be inclined to reduce the Gospel to a new law. To be sure, the Greek text says that Jesus is the teacher (didaskalos) of this righteousness of God (H VI, 94), which is rather inapposite here.

‘Faith alone, apart from the law and the prophets, does not disclose the righteousness of God nor, on the other hand, do the law and the prophets disclose it apart from faith. Thus the one is rooted in the other so that perfection comes from both’ (neque fides sola sine lege et prophetis manifestat iustitiam Dei, neque rursus lex et profetae sine fide; alterum ergo haeret ex altero ut sit ex utroque perfectio) (III, 4 [7].142-4; S 1.214; M 945). This does not make Mosaic precepts or natural law precepts a condition of justification, or put them on the same level as the Gospel. Rather, Origen is stressing in anti-Marcionit fashion that the Old Testament points to the New, and even includes the New when spiritually read in light of Christ. Nonetheless, this complementarity of faith and law is unacceptable to Melanchthon because it seems to put the two on the same level as contributions to salvation, which is not carefully enough distinguished from moral perfection. Perhaps this is what gives rise to his charge that Origen reduces Gospel to Law. Origien does tend to equate the Law as spiritually understood with the Gospel, but the letter of the Law, as well as natural law, are clearly distinguished from the Gospel. He gives them only a positive, preparatory role, not the negative role so important in the Lutheran dialectic of Law and Gospel. Or if the negative is stressed, it is that of the carnal understanding that cannot read the Law spiritually, according to the habitual Origenian schema. The Law is never allowed to be a hostile accuser; its detection of sin is the kind work of a physician, who is, however, unable to provide the healing (III, 3 [6].139-45; M 941 and III, 4 [7].43-53; M 942).

  He defines gospel righteousness more precisely as follows: ‘The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ reaches to all who believe, whether they are Jews or Greeks. It justifies those who have been cleansed from their past crimes and makes them capable of receiving the glory of God; and it supplies this glory not for the sake of their merits nor for the sake of works, but freely to those who believe’ (III, 4 [7].154-8; S 1.215; M 945). While Origen speaks elsewhere of the Gospel as a new law, what he says here is quite close to Melanchthon. Using Origen as a foil in ideological polemic, Melanchthon has not bothered to look closely at Origen’s text.

  In failing to radically oppose the Gospel to the Law, Origen seemed to Melanchthon to reduce Gospel to Law. I think Scheck goes too far when he sees this attitude as a latter-day Marcionism of just the kind that Origen fought against. Wielding a theological sledge-hammer, he finds ‘real and apparent similarities between certain Protestant theological formulae, especially those of Calvinism and Lutheranism, and the assertions of Gnostic and Marcionite exegesis’ and denounces ‘the Marcionite sympathies of some modern interpreters’ of Origen (S 1.23-4). But certainly a dramatic contrast between Law and Gospel would have undercut Origen’s project of establishing the theological harmony of the two covenants. Perhaps showing a tinge of the Marcionism denounced by Scheck, Verfaillie writes: ‘He did not concern himself with adopting the point of view of the Apostle; the absolute impotence of the Law to justify man is not at the forefront of his thought… Origen feels the need to say that the Gospel was already in the Law’ (42). Again, this underestimates the degree to which Origen articulates the impotence of the natural law and the law of Moses when read according to the letter.

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  (b) ‘Without works’

  ‘A human being is justified through faith; the works of the law contribute nothing to his being justified’ (or: ‘he to whose justification the works of the law contribute nothing is justified by faith’; iustificatur homo per fidem cui ad iustificandum nihil conferunt opera legis) (III, 6 [9].61-2; S 1.228; M 953). This is a clear statement of justification by faith alone, to which the works of the Law make no contribution. Attuned to Melanchthonian suspicion, we are inclined to ask: ‘Where’s the catch?’ And indeed this statement seems to be qualified in the direction of iustificatio ex operibus fidei in the next sentence: ‘But where there is not faith which justifies the believer, even if one possesses works from the law, nevertheless because they have not been built upon the foundation of faith, although they might appear to be good things, nevertheless they are not able to justify the one doing them, because from them faith is absent, which is the sign of those who are justified by God’ (III, 6 [9].62-7). The implication is that the works do justify when attended by faith.

  Scheck incorrectly claims that Origen is referring throughout this section to the works of Jewish ceremonial law. If Origen confined the sense of ‘justified through faith without works of the law’ (Rom. 3:28) to the ceremonial Jewish law it would be an entirely unconvincing exegesis. But it is clear that Origen has well internalized the Pauline doctrine that we cannot boast of works, in the sense of any virtues whatsoever, and that he uses the phrase ‘works of the law’ in this sense (see III.6 [9], 61-114; M 953-5). At one point Origen blurs the issues somewhat: ‘He says the “law of works” and the “law of faith”. You who read should consider whether this expression ought to be applied to the law of Moses and the natural law, or to the law of the letter and the law of the Spirit’ (III, 6 [9].109-11; S 1.229; M 955). This is criticized in Melanchthon’s 1532 commentary: Illud est ridiculum, quod quidam hic interpretantur ‘legem operum’ legem Mosi, ‘legem fidei’ legem naturae (StA V, 118-19) and is perhaps the source of Melanchthon’s impression that Origen confines ‘without works’ to the ceremonial laws.

  Elsewhere Origen writes: ‘The works that Paul repudiates and frequently criticizes are not the works of righteousness that are commanded in the law, but those in which those who keep the law according to the flesh boast; i.e., the circumcision of the flesh, the sacrificial rituals, the observance of Sabbaths or new moon festivals. These, then, and works of this nature are the ones on the basis of which he says that no one can be saved’ (ComRm VIII, 6.111-14; S 2.159; M 1178). ‘Works are so necessary in his eyes that he limits the sine operibus of Saint Paul to the ritual law. This implicitly safeguards moral works’ (Verfaillie, 82). But the issue here is really more a matter of sanctification than justification. Origen is momentarily confused: Paul in fact never repudiates or criticizes works, including those of the ritual law, but only the pretention to be justified by works. Scheck claims that ‘this passage also confirms that moral works are deemed by Origen as absolutely necessary for salvation’ (S 1.42). Origen also stresses the need for works preparatory to justification except in the exceptional cases (Verfaillie, 83). But these points do not necessarily conflict with the claim that works are irrelevant in loco iustificationis, that when it comes to our justification for God we have no ground for boasting of any works.

  In 1556 the phrase sine operibus prompts an attack on the reading of ‘faith’ as a synecdoche (CR 15.880), directed here against Andreas Osiander (1498-1552), a more up-to-date and rewarding target than Origen. Osiander wanted justification to be something more than divine favor or forgiveness. He spoke of implanted rather than imputed righteousness and associated it with the indwelling Christ. Where Melanchthon’s animus against Origen is often directed equally against Erasmus in the early editions, it is transferred to Osiander in the last edition. 

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Sola Fide is not a Synecdoche (Romans 4:1-8) 

  (a)  Softening Pauline oppositions

  Melanchthon singles out Origen’s commentary on Romans 4:1-8 (ComRm IV, 1) for critical animadversions. Origen writes: ‘The Apostle clearly makes known that there are two kinds of justification, one of whicssh he designates as by works and the other by faith’ (IV, 1.31-3; S 1.238; M 960). The duo dikaiôseis correspond to the ‘law of faith’ – which ‘excludes boasting’ – and the ‘law of works’ respectively (Rom. 3:27). Abraham is justified by faith rather than by works (ek pisteôs mallon edikaiôthê huper ex ergôn [H VI, 118]), but the two kinds of justification are in contrast rather than in opposition, and others can be justified by works even if Abraham is not. However, this justification by works does not amount to salvation.

Only the justification by faith ‘has a boast before God’, who alone can see our ‘disposition of faith’. Origen does not entirely exclude that works justify us before God (vs. Beck, 110), though not in a way that allows us to boast: ‘it can come to pass for the person who hopes for the justification by works that his works may be approved by men as well’ (IV, 1.39-40; S 1.238; M 960). The ‘as well’ indicates that works win divine approval. This concern with divine reward for works is found earlier in the Commentary, though the reward does not include eternal life, for that cannot be gained by works without faith in Christ (II, 5-7 [7].295-318; M 888). This attitude corresponds to his view that Paul upholds the value of Jewish law and Greek philosophy so as not to alienate these peoples from the Gospel.

  Thus ‘Origen softens the polarization in Rom. 4, because he senses that Abraham is being presented by Paul not so much in terms of a radical contrast (righteousness by faith vs. righteousness by works) but as a synthesizing and mediating figure’ (Gorday, 207). But Paul sets up the idea of Abraham being justified by works as something to be refuted, and presents him not as a figure synthesizing two kinds of righteousness, but as an example of righteousness by faith alone. Origen’s harmonizing disposition is the constant source of the missed insights in his commentary. One might say that the opposition of faith and works in Rom. 4:1-8 is a simplistic moment in Paul’s polemic, and that Origen corrects local twists and turns of Paul’s dialectic in the light of the full Pauline vision. But Origen’s comprehensive understanding of Romans as proclaiming a translatio religionis from a regime of carnal types and shadows to one of spiritual truth, while it captures the social context of the epistle, missed by Melanchthon, subjects the relation of the Testaments to a distorting Platonic paradigm. If this vision guides Origen whenever he smoothens out anfractuosities in the text, it is as productive of blindness as of insight.

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  (b) A Platonic model of inwardness

  What distinguishes faith is that it wins approval from God alone (apud solum deum) (IV, 1.37-8; M 960) and not from others as well. This shift from the idea that only justification by faith allows one to have glory before God to the claim that it allows one to have glory before God alone is provided with a rational basis that further blurs the contours of the Pauline argument: God alone can see our ‘disposition of faith’, hidden in the heart. Origen derives the contrast from Paul (Rom. 2:16, 28-9), but develops it according to a Platonic opposition of outer and inner. The quotation of Deut. 29:28 can be read in a Platonist sense too: ‘The secret things belong to the Lord your God, but what is manifested is for you and your sons’ (IV, 1.44-5; S 1.238; M 960). Justification by works is of a lower order than justification by faith. It is mediated by saints ‘who receive authority from God for passing judgment upon visible human works’ or angels ‘who are certainly able to glorify the one whose works they have approved’ (IV, 1.51-5; S 1.239; M 961).

  The contrast between God judging the inner heart and saints and angels being able to appraise only visible works pervades the commentary on this passage, superimposing on Paul’s argument a Platonist horizon quite alien to it. Faith is characterized Platonically as an inner virtue, wherein lies its superiority to the externality of works is operative. Heither unconvincingly claims that ‘Origen understands Paul from the Jewish way of thinking that sees no opposition between faith and works’ (H II, 160-1). That would be a strange way for Origen to save Paul from himself, given that the opposition of faith and works is one of the keystones of the Pauline dialectic, especially at this point in Romans. In reality Origen understands the opposition in his habitual Platonistic style, missing Paul’s point.

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  (c) Conflation of justification and sanctification

  A commonsense objection to justification by faith alone blocks Origen’s access to Paul here: faith cannot co-exist with unrighteousness. Origen alludes to 2 Cor 6:14 to stress this (also in IV, 7.71-83; S 1.275-6; M 985-6; cf. ComJn XIX 21; HomLev 12.3): ‘Now you should not imagine that if someone has such faith, by which, having been justified, he may have a boast before God, that he would be able at the same time to have unrighteousness with it as well. For there is no common ground between faith and infidelity; there is no communion of righteousness with wickedness, just as light can have no fellowship with darkness’ (IV, 1.63-7; S 1.239; M 961). The radical opposition of good and evil, life and death, excludes any dynamic of simul iustus ac peccator. Instead Origen makes elsewhere the rather unsatisfactory concession that most people are nec iustus nec peccator (HomEx 2.3) but something in between (HomGen 5.1; 3; HomLev 8.11). The same point is backed up by the claim in 1 John that to believe Jesus is the Christ is to be born of God and that the one born of God does not sin (IV, 1. 67-70; M 961). The harmonizing importation of Johannine Christology blurs Paul’s concern with faith as trust, fiducia. Paul attributes no Christological content to Abraham’s faith, and Johannine sinlessness is also in tension with Paul.

‘The proof of true faith is that sin is not being committed... For this reason then it is also said of Abraham in another passage of Scripture [James 2:21-2] that he was justified by the works of faith. For it is certain that he who truly believes works the work of faith and righteousness and of complete goodness and becomes capable of both kinds of boasting’ (IV, 1.70-1, 74-5; S 1.239-40; M 961). Faith appears here as a quality added to one’s works, like the wedding garment of the parable; it entitles one to a higher boast than mere works, so it can appear as an achievement (a work) or a higher order. The idea of faith as dependence on God’s mercy is lost from view. Abraham is doubly justified: by the achievement of his perfect faith and, on a lower level, by the works done in the spirit of faith. But this celebration of his justification seems oblivious of the grim scenario of the wrath of God expounded in the earlier chapters of the epistle. Redemption is not something one basks in as a glorious attainment. 

  What Melanchthon objects to is that Origen imports justification by works into a text designed to exclude it. Melanchthon resolves the contradiction between James and Paul by admitting works only as a sequel on justifying faith, which play no role in justification itself. Origen resolves it by seeing Abraham’s works as dependent on grace just as is the initial act of faith, itself interpreted as a commitment to works of righteousness.

  Origen focuses less on the guilt of sin than on its bad effects (cf. Verfaillie, 55), and images justification as a process of house-cleaning wherein vices are replaced by virtues. Scheck (1277) praises the image of ‘the soul’s active participation in the process of justification’ as a householder who receives from outside piety and all the virtues rather than vice (I, 21 [18].84-116; M 867-8). But justification is not an ascetic exercise. It is the forgiveness of sin, something in which the one forgiven cannot have an active role. We see how the conflation of justification and sanctification obscures the heart of redemption as the forgiveness of sins, the conferral of Christ’s aliena iustitia on sinners with no claim to it. ‘The negative aspect of justification is the remission of past sins in which sin is put to flight and exterminated from our flesh’ (Scheck, 1277, citing VI, 12.146-52; M 1097). In Protestant thinking our dependence on the remission of sins is a constant structure of the redeemed state; it is not just a precondition for the all-important ontological transformation (sanctification); the relational dependence of the sinner on the Savior is the core Christian experience that is easily lost from view in ascetic projects of sanctification and self-perfection. An exclusive focus on past sins (mentioned in Rom. 3:25) robs justification of its existential actuality throughout Christian life: ‘The efficacy of saving faith, which Paul expressed in unqualified and all-embracing terms, appears in Origen, though in brief and restricted ways. Like most second- and third-century writers, Origen relates Paul’s declaration of justifying faith to the forgiveness of past sins’ (Williams, 655, referring to Wiles, 111-12).

  Melanchthon would agree that good works follow on faith, but he would nonetheless insist that faith alone justifies and that justification owes nothing to works, despite the problem created by James 2:21. Origen tends to conflate the Pauline themes that Melanchthon disentangles and dramatically opposes. In Origen, the meritorious value of works is not in rivalry with faith, but is rooted in the grace of justification which it brings to fruition. Works are not disvalued in favor of faith: the works of pagans are rewarded even if they are condemned for their lack of faith, while the bad deeds of believers are punished (ComRm II, 7). Works express faith, and without them faith cannot be real. Justification tends to converge with sanctification and sanctification tends to converge with the practice of virtues. Faith itself tends to become a work. It may be that Paul himself does not consistently advance the clean divisions of Law and Gospel, the law of works and the law of faith, justification and sanctification, on which Melanchthon insists. Origen recalls Paul to his own harmonizing system, toning down the dramatic oppositions of Pauline rhetoric. Melanchthon parses Paul in terms of a dialectical system which forces consistency on those moments of dramatic rhetoric. The actual concrete horizon of Pauline thought, which can tolerate some unclarity and inconsistency in the use of terms like ‘law’, is imperfectly grasped by both theologians. Origen is more alert than Melanchthon to the social context of Paul’s argumentation, its reference to the concrete problems of Jewish and Gentile communities, but he simplifies Paul’s thought in terms of a Platonizing opposition of flesh and spirit, shadows and truth; the Jews are trapped in the former and have not yet advanced to the latter.

  ‘There are various degrees of being justified’ (Scheck, 1278) since justification is conceived as the soul’s acquisition of virtue (III, 2.[2-5].173-82; M 932). This places justification in the realm of the creature and occludes its absolute character as the gratuitous gift of forgiveness at every moment, a gift not received in greater or lesser degree. ‘Faith is not a mere sentiment or mere trust but signifies a moral life’ (Scheck, 1278). But trust in Christ’s mercy is not a mere sentiment, and the liberation of forgiveness is not ‘a moral life’, though it may enable such. A condemned criminal might depend totally on the promise of a pardon, and might receive the pardon with joy; but the sentiments here are mere overflows of the objective situation. Premature stress on the need of good works undercuts the reality of the divine pardon and courts the danger of self-justification through works. To say that ‘justification itself can be lost’ (Scheck, 1278) suggests that justification is a quality that the soul possesses, rather than a relation of trusting dependence on the justifying Savior. Origen believes in meritorious good works, but they come ‘after justification’ (Verfaillie, 115); ‘merit is the supreme fruit of justification’ (Verfaillie); Scheck comes close to confusing merit and justification itself.

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  (d) What is faith?

  Melanchthon accuses Origen of reducing faith to historical knowledge of Christ rather than saving trust. Faith is characterized in the Greek version as ‘believing that Jesus is the Son of God’ (H VI, 121) and ‘believing in the one who raised Jesus the Lord from the dead’ (H VI, 157). Rather than say that ‘for our contemporary understanding too, this touches the core of Christian faith’ (Beck, 107), I would note that this robust Christological faith may miss the understanding of faith that is most crucial for the Pauline argument, the sinner’s existential trust (fiducia) in divine mercy propter Christum.

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  (e) The synecdoche approach

  This leads to the reading of sola fide as a synecdoche. Abraham, says Origen, showed faith at many points in his career. All these partial acts of faith are summed up in and surpassed by his act of perfect faith that is reckoned to him as righteousness (IV, 1.123-4; S 1.241; M 963) – ‘the perfection of faith, collected together from many parts into one whole, which deserved to be reckoned as righteousness’ (IV, 1.140-1; S 1.242; M 963). This distinction between partial and complete faith introduces a new complication. Faith begins to look like a work that can be performed more or less well. It is quantifiable, for the complete faith is attained by gather all the partial acts of faith up into one heap. The Greek text points out that perfect faith comes from love, citing I Cor. 13; one cannot have the perfect faith that moves mountains (I Cor. 13.2) without having love (H VI, 122). Beck exaggerates the import of this: ‘Paul points clearly to the origin of faith in love. Love first enables faith’ (57-8). The faith that justifies is a moral change of outlook that comes before justification and earns it – in the sense of winning God’s favour: Dikaioi oun ton asebê dia tês pisteôs metathemenon apo tês asebeias hôste logizesthai tên metatheisan auton apo tês asebeias pistin eis dikaiosunên (H VI, 126).

  Paul’s quotation of Ps. 31:1-2 in Rom. 4:6-8 is read in this sense.

Origen makes things worse by suggesting that other virtues as well can be accounted as righteousness: someone’s mercy ‘could be reckoned for righteousness, or wisdom or knowledge or gentleness or humility’ (IV, 1.143-4; S 242; M 963). Melanchthon protests against the idea that faith is merely a synecdoche for all the other virtues, which perfect faith contains (this is not explicitly stated by Origen). In the idea that the other virtues could equally play the justifying role he finds the ‘smoking gun’ that convicts Origen of Pelagianism. He sees Origen as losing the thread of the Pauline argument and even of his own: 

In his commentary on Romans, dealing with this proposition: “We are justified by faith, not by works”, he understands it kata synekdochen: we are just by faith, that is, by perfect faith embracing all virtues. He says the same can be said of the other virtues. We are just by mercy, namely perfect mercy embracing the other virtues. This is equivalent to saying that humans have the remission of sins and are just because of their own works and their own virtues. Inattentive to what Paul is aiming at, what he calls faith and what he intend by the exclusive locution “not by works” he adds confused and perplexed elaborations and is inconsistent with himself. (In Rom. tractans hanc propositionem: Fide iustificamur, non ex operibus, intelligit eam kata synekdochen, fide sumus iusti, id est, perfecta fide complectente omnes virtutes. Idque declarat, dicit idem posse dici de caeteris virtutibus. Misericordia sumus iusti, scilicet perfecta, complectente caeteras virtutes. Hoc nihil aliud est dicere, quam homines propter opera et propter virtutes suas habere remissionem peccatorum et iustos esse. Cumque non attendat, quid agat Paulus, quid vocet fidem, quid sibi velit illa exclusiva: Non ex operibus, addit enarrationes confusas et perplexas, nec sibi constat.) (CR 15.749) 

  The impression of confusion and inconsistency in Origen is borne out by our own reading of his text both in Rufinus’s translation and in the Greek of the Tura fragment.

  The synecdoche is already criticized in 1532 (StA V, 128), though without naming Origen. In 1540, we read that Origen ‘shamefully distorts Paul’s speech, nor does he keep the original sense of the words. The statement of Paul, “We are justified by faith”, contains nothing against our side. They dissolve it by synecdoche and impose a completely alien interpretation: “By faith, that is, by historical knowledge, we are justified, that is, we are prepared for learning the commandments whereby we may later merit the imputation of rightousness”’ (turpissime dilacerat Pauli orationem, nec retinet nativam verborum significationem. Nihil adversariis nostris significat haec oratio Pauli: Fide iustificamur. Excusant eam per synecdochen, et affingunt prorsus alienam interpretationem: Fide, id est, noticia historiae, iustificamur, id est, praeparamur, ut praecepta discamus, quibus postea mereamur imputationem iusticiae) (CR 15.498).

  A synecdoche is a figure of speech that names the part to signify the whole. If ‘faith’ is taken as a synecdoche for the whole life or faith or for the virtues that take faith as their foundation, then the doctrine of justification by faith alone is abolished. Melanchthon comes back to this: ‘Now we must reprehend the sophistry of Origen, the monks, and many others, who think that it is according to a synecdoche that we are said to be justified by faith, that is, we are righteous through historical knowledge of Christ, or through the profession and the other virtues, or through general obedience… Thus this synecdoche transforms Gospel into Law, transfers the glory of Christ to our virtues, abolishes the consolation of consciences and the true doctrine of faith, that is, trust in mercy’ (Nunc reprehendenda est sophistica Origenis, Monachorum, et multorum aliorum, qui kata synekdochen dici arbitrantur: Fide iustificamur, id est, propter noticiam historiae de Christo, seu professionem et caeteras virtutes, seu universalem obedientiam sumus iusti... Ita haec synecdoche transformat Evangelium in legem, transfert gloriam Christi ad nostras virtutes, delet consolationem conscientiarum, abolet doctrinam veram de fide, id est, fiducia misericordiae) (CR 15.520-1). He promises to refute copiously this view of ‘faith’ as a synecdoche for ‘faith and works’. It is on this point that he has his most significant debate with Origen and scores his most telling points.

In 1556: ‘They would have it that in the proposition “we are justified by faith” there is a synecdoche, that is, we are justified by faith and the other virtues, or we are prepared by faith that we may later be just by the other virtues’ (volunt in hac propositione synecdochen esse, fide iustificamur, id est, fide et caeteris virtutibus iustificamur, seu fide praeparamur, ut postea aliis virtutibus iusti simus) (CR 15.803).

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  (f) The good thief

  However, when Origen says dikaiosunên autô logizesthai chôris ergôn (H VI, 126), he means only without the works that will be done and that must be done for the justification to be retained. Justification without works is a temporary, paradoxical situation, not the basic situation of the Christian, as it is for Paul.

Origen conflates justification and sanctification, and he conflates sanctification and works. But this works both ways – if he tends to make faith a work, he also gives works the graced character of faith. The link of faith with grace and works with due reward in Rom. 4:4 is taken as referring only to evil works. Good works are not in tension with faith, but are rooted in the grace of justification which they bring to fruition. In Philonic vein, Origen points out that all our works are gifts of grace, and since God provides the capital he can hardly be asked to reward our works as of due (IV, 1.157-62; M 963-4). For Philo, even ordinary perception and thought are impossible unless God opens up the senses: ‘it is God who showers conceptions on the mind and perceptions on sense, and what comes into being is no gift of any part of ourselves, but all are bestowed by him, through whom we too have been made’ (De Cherubim 127; cf. Prov. 20:12).

  Now the faith of the good thief is portrayed as a perfect work: ‘Faith cannot be reckoned as righteousness to one who believes in part, but only to him who believes completely and perfectly’, and if it justifies the ungodly it is only after he turns aside from ungodliness and in order that ‘he would no longer be ungodly’ (IV, 1.191-7; S 244; M 964). Here the distinction between partial and complete faith, introduced in connection with Abraham, is applied back to the good thief mentioned in Book III. The tendency to see faith itself as a good work is carried further by Chrysostom and Ambrosiaster (see Schelke, 129).

‘Even in the case of the thief, both his faith and his works contributed to his justification. Initially he was justified by faith alone in the sense that Jesus freely forgave him his past crimes and demanded no antecedent works before this first justification. But his faith was effective in the just works of publicly confessing the Lordship of Christ and rebuking the other thief who was blaspheming, and therefore, having been liberated by divine grace, this robber deserved to be justified’ (Scheck, 1281, citing V, 9.83-90; S. 1.364; M 1045). The main point of that referencec is that root of righteousness acquired by faith in God who justifies the sinner is acceptable to God even without the works that normally spring from it. The good thief’s confession of faith (without works) associates him to Christ, the tree of life. However, as Scheck urges, this is not a forensic righteousness that is clearly differentiated from the sanctification that follows on it. Justification is a process, which begins with the act of faith in the one who justifies. Justification, conflated with sanctification, is complete only when moral perfection is attained, and is never complete in this life (cf. III, 2 [2-5].185-6; S 1.194-5; M 932).

  Here we have a theory of double justification – the initial forgiveness is followed by a superior justification earned by good works as well as faith; just this is what the Reformation rejected. Verfaillie, quoted here by Scheck, is closer to the Reformers: ‘This meritorious character of our works has its source in the grace of justification and brings its concept to completion. Freed from the death of sin, the Christian soul is united to Christ, who gives it a new life and, by that very token, the means of bearing fruits pleasing to God’ (117). Sanctification here is seen as the ripe fruit of justification, not as its replacement.

  Paul cites Ps. 32:1-2 in Rom. 4:7-8 as showing that ‘righteousness is reckoned to a person apart from works’ (IV, 1.205-6; S 1.244; M 965). Origen spells out Paul’s logic: ‘Either righteousness or unrighteousness must dwell in a person who has cognizance, through being old enough to distinguish good and evil. If this is so, no soul can be found without one of the two dwelling in it; and it is certain that if that [soul] should desist from evil, it would then be found in the good. But that soul is not in evil “whose iniquities are forgiven...” It is therefore logical that it is in the good’ (IV, 1.207-14; S 1.245; M 965) There is no room here for any simul iustus et peccator, nor is the righteousness of the justified sinner grasped as an external righteousness, a righteousness granted by Christ rather than possessed by the soul as its own. As Maurice Wiles writes, ‘Faith in Christ does not need to be supplemented by the virtuous life; it is the adoption of the virtues. Thus the connection between faith and works is a logically necessary one’ (114, cited, Scheck, 1281). Again from the Reformation standpoint this is a confusion between justification and sanctification. ‘Origen conceives justification to be an effective sanctification in which sin is expelled and grace is established in the believer’s soul’ (Scheck, 1282).

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  (g) A tolerable statement

  But then Origen makes a statement that comes close to the heart of the Protestant vision of Paul and that Melanchthon singles out as tolerabile dictum, even if id postea mox corrumpit (CR 15.749 = CR 23.611):

The Apostle fittingly says that only on the basis that he believes in him who justifies the ungodly, righteousness would be reckoned to a man, even if he has not yet produced works of righteousness. For faith which believes in the one who justifies is the beginning of being justified by God. And this faith, when it has been justified, is firmly embedded in the soil of the soul like a root that has received rain, so that when it begins to be cultivated by God’s law, branches arise from it, which bring forth the fruit of works. The root of righteousness, therefore, does not grow out of the works, but rather the fruit of works grows out of the root of righteousness, that root, of course, of righteousness which God also credits even apart from works. (IV, 1.214-24; S 1.245; M 965)

  This lucid text momentarily unites Paul, Origen, Melanchthon, Catholicism and Protestantism in a blessed accord (see Schelke, 128; S 1.45). ‘Faith obtains the righteousness out of which works emerge; and this relationship is not reversible’ (Heither, 235; quoted, Scheck, 1280). But if the passage were a straightforward expression of sola fide, Melanchthon would not have called it merely ‘tolerable’. The phrase, ‘when it has been justified’ (cum iustificata fuerit) could be seen as undercutting the sufficiency of faith: it needs to be justified as well.

  Scheck reduces the impact of the passage by reading it in light of less penetrating ones: ‘It seems to me clear in other texts that good works can effect reconciliation with God, and that not all faith is capable of doing so, nor is faith alone capable of doing so, except in exceptional cases’ (1280). But it can be argued that precisely the alleged exceptional case of the good thief is the one that lights up the basic structure of Christian existence, as lived extra nos in dependence on Christ. Making up to God through our good works, rather than embracing anew the forgiveness that God alone can give, elides this basic Christian reality. ‘Origen plainly says that faith can be present but that without the advantages of good works effectual reconciliation with God does not take place’ (Scheck, 1281). Melanchthon would say that the absence of good works impugns the authenticity of the trusting faith (not just belief), but that the sinner is justified before and independently of good works, and even when his faith has borne fruit in abundant works, it is still the faith, not the works, that reconciles him with God. Scheck claims that even the exceptional cases also show that ‘both faith and works are equally necessary conditions for justification’ (1283); yet Origen’s accounts of these cases are more naturally read as Melanchthon reads them. The Christian is not one who comes before God proving his worthiness by works, but one who sues for unmerited, gratuitous forgiveness, and for the gift of Christ’s righteousness, imputed and conferred as an aliena iustitia.

  Origen’s commitment to justification by faith alone might be compromised if he sees it as applying only to those who had no time to produce the works that follow on faith, such as the good thief. This example is introduced with the remark that to preserve the consistency of Scripture we need to ask: ‘Who has been justified by faith alone without works of the law?’ (III, 6 [9].26-7; S 1.226; M 962). Does this imply that in the normal course of affairs we are justified not by faith alone but by faith and works? Of the good thief he writes: ‘In the Gospels nothing else is recorded about his good works, but for the sake of this faith alone Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you: Today you will be with me in paradise” (Lk. 23:43)’ (III, 6 [9].29-32; S 1.226; M 962-3).

  The good thief is not an exception, for many people are told by Jesus that their sins are forgiven pro sola fide, ‘making clear that the Apostle is correct to hold that a man is justified through faith without works of law’; but ‘if anyone acts unjustly after justification, it is scarcely to be doubted that he has rejected the grace of justification’ (III, 6 [9].52-3, 56-7; S 1.227; M 953). On the latter point, Melanchthon would say that we do not cease to act unrighteously after justification, for our obedience is never adequate. But if we commit grave sins against conscience we can lose faith and the grace of justification. For Origen, the justified can already be called saints, if they do not waste the grace of justification by unholy lives; that grace is not lost by lesser sins. Where Origen draws a line between mortal and venial sins, Melanchthon draws it between the mortally sinful concupiscence with God overlooks in imputing Christ’s righteousness to the sinner and the deliberate persistence in mortal sin that scorns God’s graciousness. When Origen adds that ‘the remission is not given for future crimes, but only past ones’ (III, 6 [9].59-60; S 1.228; M 953) he seems to reduce justification to forgiveness of past sins, whereas for Melanchthon it is operative at every moment, for the sinner must constantly cast himself on the promise of justification through the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.

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  (h) The insight lost

  The following development is what Melanchthon was alluding to when he said id postea mox corrumpit: ‘Because the starting point of a soul’s conversion is to abandon evil, on account of its doing so it would merit the forgiveness of iniquities. But when it begins to do good, as if covering over each of the evils it has previously committed with later good actions and introducing a quantity of goods more numerous than the evils which had existed, it may be said to cover its sins’ (IV, 1.237-40; S 1.246; M 965). Here saving faith has become a moral resolution to abandon evil; forgiveness is not granted as a grace but merited; it is no longer the Lord who covers the soul’s sins but its own good deeds, quantitatively matching them! Pelagius echoes this in his commentary: ‘Some say that sin is forgiven in baptism, covered by penitential works, and not counted against one through martyrdom. But others say that when sins have been forgiven in baptism, love for God is increased, which covers a multitude of sins [and] finally keeps them from being counted against one as long as daily good works surpass past misdeeds’ (De Bruyn, 85). Here, in Origen, is the root of the medieval Pelagianism that Luther saw as enslaving consciences and making the Gospel opaque.

  Verfaillie lauds this passage as an example of Origen’s psychological realism, stating that ‘Origen of course did not ask if righteousness is imputed or inherent; but one sees that the spiritual realism of his psychology moves in the direction of the latter conception’ (Verfaillie, 110). If there is a commonsense realism here, it passes over the deeper reality of the justified sinner’s continued dependence on divine forgiveness in the very structure of his virtuous life, which is not a merely psychological reality but which the deeper psychological realism of Luther lit up. Indeed, it misses the basic psychology of the Psalm text itself, which refers not to good works covering bad ones but to the Lord covering our transgression.

Melanchthon writes:

But after declaring these things, he seems to mean this, that initially man attains the remission of sins by faith alone. Later he is just by the other virtues; as he himself later says: ‘Faith is reputed for righteousness to him who is converted, but later righteousness is reputed for righteousness’. Further on there is a remarkable variety and confusion in the account. Though granting that man initially attains remission of sins by faith alone, he nonetheless later imagines that the converted are without sin, satisfy the law, and are righteous on account of the other virtues. He dissents from Paul and from the rest of Scripture, as in: ‘No one living will be justified in your sight’, and again, ‘If we say that we have no sin, etc. (Sed postea declarans illa, videtur hoc velle, hominem initio consequi remissionem peccatorum sola fide, postea iustum esse caeteris virtutibus, sicut ipse postea inquit: Fides reputatur ad iustitiam, ei qui convertitur, sed postea iustitia reputatur ad iustitiam. Porro mira varietas et perplexitas est enarrationis, etiamsi largitur hominem initio sola fide consequi remissionem peccatorum, tamen postea imaginatur conversos sine peccato esse, satisfacere legi, et iustos esse  propter caeteras virtutes, dissentit a Paulo et a reliquis scripturis divinis, iuxta illud: Non iustificabitur in conspectu tuo omnis vivens. Item: Si dixerimus, quod peccatum hon habeamus etc.) (CR 15.749-50)

  Origen continues in the vein of celebrating moral achievement as what essentially justifies us before God: ‘But when a [soul] would henceforth reach perfection so that every root of evil is completely cut off from it to the point that no trace of evil can be found in it, at that point the summit of blessedness is promised to the one to whom the Lord would be able to impute no sin’ (IV, 1.240-4; S 1.246; M 965-6). The non-imputation of sin is no longer a miracle of divine mercy. Paul’s doctrine of forgiveness is changed into an eschatological promise of the blessings of final perfection, when the Lord can impute no sin since the soul has in fact freed itself from sin. ‘Thus the term of justification is a state of purity that will make the soul irreproachable on the day of judgment’ (Verfaillie, 111, citing VII 10, M 1130). Yet on the day of judgment it is not one’s purity that justifies but, as before, the gratuitous forgiveness of Christ received in faith. Origen’s commonsense realism here misses the point of Paul’s psalm situation and pretty clearly falls into the Pelagian trap.

  Thanks to Melanchthon’s vigilance (building on Augustine) we cannot read such Pelagianizing texts uncritically today. Yet Origen scholars remain uncritical in their comments on this passage. ‘Progressive overcoming of evil is progressive conquest of freedom, is self-realization. God wills that the being endowed with mind should move itself to the goal through itself, and therefore gives it freedom’ (Heither, 202).  ‘Origen’s understanding of justification as a transformational process, that is, as a renewal of the old Adam and a state that can be increased, decreased or lost altogether, and not merely as an imputation, was fully endorsed at the Council of Trent’ (Scheck, 1288). Trent’s language could however be sifted to differentiate more clearly the event of justification from the process of sanctification. ‘The original decline but not total corruption of humanity, the necessity and efficacity of the redemptive work, its application by the indivisible concourse of God and man, the effective sanctification of the soul by grace, the meritorious value of its acts in view of glory: such are the doctrines that the Church sets up against the Reformation, and one finds them all clearly in Origen’ (Verfaillie, 119). These points concern sanctification rather than justification, and risk occluding the original situation lit up by Paul.

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Conclusion 

  The Reformers’ questions are not the only ones to be put to patristic texts, and those questions can themselves be questioned in turn. But they remain thus far the most stimulating catalyst of a critical reading of patristic texts, seen as ‘a product of the Greek mind on the soil of the Gospel’ in Harnack’s famous phrase. This critical reading attends to the tensions in patristic writing between conflicting forms of thought. Thus in these few pages of Origen we see how conventional moralism and common sense, philosophical reflection on ethical growth, Platonic dualism of internal and external, a Philonic doctrine of grace, a harmonizing quest to make Scripture consistent with itself, jostle against one another, and against the equally complex thinking behind the Pauline text, to generate a web of insights that often entail oversights, inviting contemporary readers to learn from both as they cut their own path to the matter at stake.

  The debate about justification is one that many will find abstruse, outdated and unreal. Any attempt to clarify and resolve the old controversies today will muster only a pale replica of the clarity and conviction of the sixteenth century debaters. The old Catholic objections to the sola fide doctrine may now seem rather jejune in their insistence on logic: ‘How can mere faith make us righteous? Must it not be a "lively" faith and thereby already something more than faith? How can a righteous God account us righteous unless we really are so? How can it make sense to say that we are sinners and righteous at the same time?’ Today they are likely to yield to an ecumenical willingness to say that the Protestant and the Tridentine accounts of justification are merely alternative languages, both imperfect, for saying much the same thing. Such an entente can lead to confusions greater than any of which Melanchthon or even Luther is accused, as in Newman’s Lectures on Justification (see O’Leary 1991) or in the Lutheran-Catholic Agreement of October 1999, which has had only a spotty reception among the Lutheran churches. Yet Melanchthon’s thought testifies to a dialogal openness built into Luther’s message, and the implicit invitation must be taken up again and again as the churches seek to appropriate the evangelical thrust of sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia while setting it the broadest and most comprehensive context.

  What best clarifies the Lutheran teaching is the scenario of a final judgment, and the question, ‘To what can we appeal when faced with our Judge?’ The Lutheran answer is that we can appeal only to the mercy of Christ, who clothes us with his righteousness, not to any holiness of our own, for the latter is always only an imperfect beginning. Unfortunately for many Christians today the scenario itself, the entire way the question is set up, may have an old-fashioned, perhaps mythic feel to it. The lack of grip exhibited by both Lutheran and Catholic theologians in discussing justification is perhaps a sign that it is no longer such a burning question for Christian faith. Even in exegesis of Paul the accent has tended to shift to a wider historical context within which talk of justification by faith is only a single strand. Nonetheless, in our engagement with the ‘signs of the times’ and the needs of the planet today, we do well to cultivate a consciousness of grace and to recall the vigilance with which the classical theologians warded off every tendency to change the Gospel into something that was no longer pure gift.

  The study of historical theology is a peculiar experience: one visits a series of battlefields, in which in each case the essence of Christianity seems to be at stake; yet from all those ancient urgencies there is little that retains immediate, direct relevance to today’s concerns. The old theologies are a cloud of witnesses to the event or process of salvation, but their witness is cloudy; they communicate the challenge of their earnestness, the impetus of their quest, but we cannot simply take over the frameworks within which they thought. When a third-century Alexandrian thinker is caught up in the cross-fire of the Reformation he will inevitably be exposed to much distortion and misunderstanding, and this will continue when scholarship studies him in light of Catholic-Protestant controversy. Origen fared better than might have been expected at Melanchthon’s hands, though the Reformer used him primarily as a foil for his own ‘purer’ doctrine. A more generous hermeneutic might have done more justice to the integrity of Origen’s vision, which is the first major reception of Pauline theology in Christian history. The Reformation challenge remains central in any contemporary attempt at a critical retrieval of Patristic theology, and it is a mistake to reject it as irrelevant or to regard the superior ‘Catholic’ wisdom of Origen as automatically triumphing over Protestant criticisms. The theology of grace and justification undoubtedly needs to be opened up beyond a certain dogmatism in the Reformers and in Augustine, but not at the cost of disparaging the insights they attained that were not accessible to Origen. Nonetheless, Origen, writing in Greek and closer chronologically and culturally to Paul, is a resource for this opening up. A more important resource, of course, is renewed exegesis of Paul himself in his Jewish context. But even Paul is but one historical witness to the matter itself, the situation of human beings before a gracious God. The Christian mind cannot rest comfortably in the thought-frames of past figures, be they Melanchthon or Augustine, Origen or even Paul; the matter itself demands to be rethought in the context of contemporary rationality. Perhaps contemporary theology cannot produce a clear synthesis comparable to those of Augustine or Melanchthon. Perhaps discourse about sin and grace has become irremediably pluralistic and contextual, so that we can draw on the repertory of the old languages where we find them enlightening, but no longer with the old confidence of defining the logic of redemption. The controversy between Origen and Melanchthon is a historical drama that stimulates and fascinates, but that only obliquely guides our present thinking.

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TEXTS 

Origen: 

B = Hammond Bammel, Caroline P. (1990-98). Der Römerbriefkommentar des Origenes. Kritische Ausgabe der Übersetzung Rufins. Freiburg: Herder.

H = Heither, Theresia (1991-6). Origenes: Commentarii in Epistulam ad Romanos. Freiburg: Herder. 

M = Migne, Patrologia Graeca XIV.

S = Scheck, Thomas P. (2001-2). Origen: Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Washington DC: CUA Press (The Fathers of the Church, vols. 103-4). 

Pelagius:

De Bruyn, Theodore, trans. (1993). Pelagius’s Commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Oxford: Clarendon.

Erasmus: 

Collected Works of Erasmus 56: Annotations on Romans. Ed. Robert D. Sider. University of Toronto Press, 1994. 

Melanchthon: 

BSKL = Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986. 

CR = Corpus Reformatorum. Philippi Melanthonis opera quae supersunt omnia. Ed. Karl Bretschneider and Heinrich Bindseil. Halle: Schwetschke, 1834-60. 

StA = Melanchthons Werke in Auswahl [Studienausgabe]. Ed. Robert Stupperich. Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1951-75. 

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STUDIES 

Barth, Karl (1998). Die Theologie der reformierten Bekenntnisschriften 1923.  Zürich: Theologischer Verlag. 

Beck, Gottfried (1966). Das Werk Christi bei Origenes: Zur Deutung paulinischer Theologie im Turapapyrus des Römerbrief-Kommentars. Diss., Bonn. 

Dechow, Jon (1995). ‘Origen’s Shadow over the Erasmus/Luther Debate’. Origeniana Sexta ( Leuven University Press), pp. 739-57. 

Faber, RIemer (2005). ‘The Humanism of Melanchthon and of Calvin’. In: Frank and Selderhuis, 11-25.

Frank, Günter, and Herman J. Selderhuis (2005). Melanchthon und der Calvinismus. Melanchthon-Schriften der Stadt Bretten 9. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog.

Friedenthal, Richard (1982). Luther: Sein Leben und seine Zeit. Munich: Piper. 

Gorday, Peter (1983). Principles of Patristic Exegesis: Romans 9-11 in Origen, John Chrysostom, and Augustine. New York: Edwin Mellen, 1983. 

Grane, Leif (1999). Reformationsstudien: Beiträge zu Luther und zur Dänische Reformation. Mainz: Von Zabern. 

Greschat, Martin (1965). Melanchthon neben Luther: Studien zur Gestalt der Rechtfertigungslehre zwischen 1528 und 1537. Witten: Luther Verlag. 

Heither, Theresia (1990). Translatio Religionis: Die Paulusdeutung des Origenes in seinem Kommentar zum Römerbrief. Köln: Böhlau. 

Maag, Karin (2005). ‘Higher education for Melanchthon and Calvinism: a comparative approach’. In: Frank and Selderhuis, 61-74.

Maurer, Wilhelm (1969). Der junge Melanchthon zwischen Humanismus und Reformation. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 

Meijering, E. P. (1983). Melanchthon and Patristic Thought. Leiden: Brill. 

Morgan, Robert (1995). Romans. Sheffield Academic Press (New Testament Guides). 

O’Leary, Joseph S. (1991). ‘Impeded Witness: Newman Against Luther on Justification’. In: David Nicholls and Fergus Kerr, ed. John Henry Newman: Reason, Rhetoric and Romanticism. Bristol Press, pp. 153-93. 

---- (2003). ‘Atonement’, ‘Grace’. In: John McGuckin, ed. The Westminster Handbook to Origen. Louisville, London: Westminster John Knox Press, pp. 66-8, 113-17.

Roukema, Riemer (1988). The Diversity of Laws in Origen’s Commentary on Romans. Amsterdam: Free University Press. 

---- (1989). ‘Origenes’ visie op de rechtvaardiging volgens zijn Commentaar op Romeinen’. Gereformeerd Theologisch Tijdschrift 89: 94-105. 

Schäfer, Rolf (1997). ‘Melanchthon’s Interpretation of Rom 5.15: His Departure from the Augustinian Concept of Grace Compared to Luther’s’. In: Timothy J. Wengert and M. Patrick Graham, ed. Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560) and the Commentary. Sheffield Academic Press, pp. 79-104. 

Scheck, Thomas P. (2003). ‘Justification by Faith Alone in Origen’s Commentary on Romans and its Reception during the Reformation Era’. In: Origeniana Octava, Leuven University Press, pp. 1277-88. 

Scheible, Heinz (1992). ‘Melanchthon’. Theologische Real-Enzyklopädie ( Berlin: De Gruyter) 26.371-410. 

Schelke, Karl Hermann (1956). Paulus, Lehrer der Väter: Die altkirchliche Auslegung von Römer 1-11. Düsseldorf: Patmos. 

Verfaillie, Camille (1926). La doctrine de la justification dans Origène d’après son commentaire de l’Épître aux Romains. Diss., Université de Strasbourg, Faculté de Théologie Catholique. 

Wengert, Timothy J. (1998). Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness: Philip Melanchthon’s Exegetical Dispute with Erasmus of Rotterdam. Oxford University Press.

Wiedenhofer, Siegfried (1997). ‘Der römische Katholizismus und Melanchthon’. In: Jörg Haustein, ed. Philipp Melanchthon: Ein Wegbereiter für die Ökumene. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 79-97.

Wiles, Maurice (1967). The Divine Apostle: The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles in the Early Church. London.

Williams, D. H. (2006). ‘Justification by Faith: A Patristic Doctrine’. Journal of Ecclesiastical History 57:649-67.

Impeded Witness: Newman Against Luther on Justification

The great controversy about justification, already on its last legs in Newman’s Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification (1838; references are to the third edition of 1874; London, 1900) is rather like a radio programme called “What are They Talking About?” which beguiled the dim nights of pre-television Ireland. It begins in mid-air with high talk of sin, a topic now decentred or recontextualised by the supervening question of meaning, as developed in philosophy since Nietzsche and in literature since Kafka. Discussion of meaning has united the Churches in what maybe an ecumenism of exhaustion, permitting a wider, subtler approach to what had been stylised under the rubrics of sin and grace. (See G. Sauter, ed. Rechtfertigung als Grundbegriff evangelischer Theologie, Munich, 1989, p. 19.)

To turn back to the issue of justification is to re-enter, it seems, a sectarian echo-chamber. The voices of Paul, Augustine and Luther no longer have immediate authority, for the imposing frameworks they presume us to share with them strike us as dated “technologies of salvation" not immediately transferable to our culture. (See L. H. Martin et al., ed. Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, London, 1988.) We have come to realise that Christian tradition is not a single channel broadcasting system, but is dispersed in local transmissions bearing loose analogies to one another. Its unity is that of an open-ended project, irreducibly pluralistic from the start, and marked by an epochal and cultural heterogeneity - or incommensurability – that foils synthesis.

Even dogmas – Augsburg and Trent on justification – turn out to be wandering rocks, provisional attempts at clarity within selective, distorting receptions of the scriptural heritage. Dogmatic theology, then, can no longer subsume history, and must be content with a merely hermeneutic role, putting strategic questions to past discourses in view of present concerns.

For a strategic rather than archival rehearsal of Newman’s Lectures, a promising point of attack may be the metaphysical framework of his thought - his role as a champion against Luther of Aristotelian logic and patristic ontology. Beneath the explicit claims and counter-claims of Luther and Newman, we may tune in to their tacit dispute about the appropriate texture of theological speech and writing, which, in its confusions and inconclusiveness, resonates with our own continuing unease about the relations between theology and metaphysics. (Defences of Luther against Newman seem to have been ineffective and blustering, to judge from J. C. Hare’s Vindication of Luther, Cambridge, 1855, pp. 74-100.)

Though Newman’s foreground themes are ethics, holiness, faith and the sacraments, orchestrated with so many scriptural allusions that the work has been called "basically an exercise in biblical theology” (P. Toon, Evangelical Theology 1833-1856, London, 1979, p. 150), yet the recurrent stress on metaphysical realism and logic is so strong that it seems to hamper the free exfoliation of those spiritual and biblical themes. That is what most divides him from Luther, whom he chiefly scolds for lack of logic and a deficient sense of (ontological) reality. Yet at times his voice seems to falter, suggesting that in some corner of his mind he may be of Luther’s party without knowing it.

One of the things that makes a critique of such texts strenuous is the prevalence of those big words which our ancestors took for granted and which still have power to lure us into oblivion of what they mask. The first step of a metaphysical theology is that which defines “love”, “faith”, “grace”, “sin” as unitary phenomena – whereas the historical pluralism of their usage reveals that they are labels for highly diverse ensembles of situations and experiential patterns. The richness of such terms in their primary usages calls for sensitive quasi-literary appreciation, not definition within a theoretical superstructure.

Luther enjoys an almost Pauline plasticity in the use of these big words, but the freedom with which he retrieved biblical language was later inhibited by anxiety to identify the “formal cause” of justification. That phrase is the key concept of the Lectures, and Newman is never more self-consciously Aristotelian than when explaining – with a judicious blend of the logical and the empirical – what he means by it (pp. 343-6). We shall see that this logical and ontological approach, in which Bellarmine tutored him, has a cramping and flattening effect on his thought and keeps him from grasping the biblical kerygma with Luther’s sense of concrete immediacy. (Thanking J. F. Christie for the gift of Bellarmine’s “Disputationes”, he says: “it has written my lectures on Justification”, Letters and Diaries, VI, p. 83.) If we can unravel the net of his reasonings, we may retrieve the vitality of his witness; only we run the risk in doing so of becoming ourselves entangled with him in that net.

IS LUTHERANISM SHADOWY?

Luther, in his quest for a language adequate to the biblical kerygma, had constantly to ward off the seemingly natural metaphysical terms that presented themselves. Thus he rejected as a diabolical gloss the seemingly innocuous notion of “fides caritate formata” (faith given form by charity) since it shifts the thinking of faith from the situation of the sinner before God to the falsely objective medium of dispassionate ontological considerations (WA 40:1, pp. 421-8; Newman, pp. 9, 13, 21,22). Theological confession could only be distorted when transferred to the medium of reflexive philosophical observation. (See W. Link, Das Ringen Luthers um die Freiheit der Theologie von der Philosophie, Munich, 1955, p. 208.) The violence of this rejection perhaps stemmed in part from his lack of a technique for a more serene and comprehensive undoing of such distortions through immanent criticism, such as Kant, Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Derrida have since so elaborately undertaken.

The metaphysics he most objected to is that which sees human personhood as a neutral substance, receiving successively the qualities of sin and of grace. Such an anthropology of substance, habits and qualities has no validity for our existence before God. (See K.-H. zur Mühlen, Reformatorische Vernunft-Kritik und neuzeitliches Denken, Tübingen, 1980, pp. 44-6.) This is part of a wider resistance to all efforts to explicate the process of salvation in metaphysical language. His re-enactment of the Pauline escape from the tangle of the Law is reflected in a freeing of his speech from metaphysical constraints through constant reference to the paradoxes of redemption. Even the secure identity of the self becomes something provisional and fragile: we are constituted sinners in our alienation from God, righteous in the relation of grace, and have no independent metaphysically fixed identity.

(“The Law” is another of those unitary terms that are exploded by a grasp of historical pluralism. Paul’s reception of the Jewish senses of the term seems disrupted by some cultural or psychological interference [see E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, London, 1977; H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law, Tübingen, 1983], while the patristic receptions of Paul are steeped in Hellenistic metaphysics of cosmic law and allegorical stylisations of salvation history. What are we to make today of Luther’s powerful constructions, which transfer Paul to the sixteenth century and pit him against all that had then acquired the status of Law? The most that can be said, as in so many analogous cases, is that in yet another radically altered -- post-Nietzschean, post-Freudian -- context they remain suggestive and stimulating for our moral reflections.)
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Luther gave expression to his vision of existential brokenness and openness in striking paradoxes, which then became frozen into firm doctrines. He was led to build a system on the Gospel experience, distilling out of it fundamental principles and articles, and so handing it over to scholastic analyses and objections. (See M. Greschat, Melanchthon neben Luther, Wittenberg, 1965.) Here, we may suppose, is the source of the flaws of Lutheranism, at least as Newman found it, and of his impression that Protestantism was a web of shadowy principles, not convertible into practical rules (pp. 333-5).

Later, the restlessness of Luther’s thought was again lost in another kind of metaphysics, in which the categories of the personal, the relational and the existential were opposed in a facile and stereotyped way to ontic and objectifying conceptions.

Catholic theologians have “excused” Luther on the grounds of his inability to surpass the merely personal-existential level to grasp the metaphysical depth of sin and righteousness (see A. Hasler, Luther in der katholischen Dogmatik, Munich, 1968, II, p. 66), which is to miss the point that for Luther the enclosure of biblical existentiality within a metaphysical framework has a denaturing effect. That denaturing also marks the Reformers’ own　discourse on justification in terms of its efficient, material,　formal or　instrumental, and final causes (categories that seemed obvious and　indispensable to the thinkers of that time). (See R. Schröder. Johann Gerhards lutherische Christologie und die aristotelische Metaphysik, Tübingen, 1983.)

Luther himself may still be able to elude this framework, insofar as his use of causal jargon – as when Christ is described as the form of faith or righteousness, or faith is described as formal righteousness – is marked by subversive paradox. (See K. Bornkamm, Luthers Auslegungen des Galaterbriefs, Berlin, 1963, pp. 93-9.) He had a clear enough idea of what he was talking about to be able to neutralise such metaphysical categories and make them subserve a Pauline vision. Later the intrinsic logic of these metaphysical elements took over, shaping a scholastic Protestant orthodoxy, as the originating convictions came to be taken for granted.

Newman, who never queries the necessity or adequacy of causal language, takes Luther’s use of it at face value: “the bold, nay correct language of Luther, that Christ Himself is the form of our justification” (p. 362; see also pp. 358-9, 12, 20, 23).

When it is most free from metaphysics, Luther’s thought dwells in the horizons of the Word-event wherein faith (not yet reduced to a pallid Melanchthonian formula) surges up to receive the proclamation of grace. At this level it would be absurd to speak of a merely forensic justification or of a faith divorced from renewal. Newman comes close to that pre-systematic Luther as he appeals to the effectiveness of the divine word (pp. 67, 72, 74, 81-4, 97-100) against the surgical differentiation of justification from renewal. Similar arguments recur in contemporary Lutheran exegesis and theology (see H. Schütte, Protestantismus, Essen-Werden, 1967, pp. 392-430). Theologians seek to overcome the rigidity of such theses as the “simul iustus et peccator” (righteous and sinner at the same time) by a recall to their basis in the life of faith and prayer. (See O. H. Pesch, Theologie der Rechtfertigung bei Martin Luther und Thomas von Aquin, Mainz, 1967, pp. 109-22; R. Hermann, Luthers These “Gerecht und Sünder zugleich”, Gütersloh, 1930, with the ecumenically significant review articles of R. Kösters, Catholica 18, 1964, pp. 48-77; 193-217; 19, 1965, pp. 138-62; 171-85.)

But Newman does not bring to Luther a generous hermeneutic that could retrieve the spirit and intent of these doctrines. His reading of the Reformers is circumscribed by the ring of metaphysical definitions in which they enshrined their message. Instead of letting their sense of the effective biblical Word remould and repristinate his patristic ontology of righteousness, he measures them against that ontology and allows it to have a petrifying effect on his understanding of the biblical kerygma itself.

Lutheranism (and Luther’s own 1531 Commentary on Galatians) might plausibly be seen as torn between the early Luther for whom “faith” is shorthand for the whole Word-event, which comprises justification and renewal, and the later formalisation of justifying faith and sedulous differentiation of justification and renewal. This tension may sometimes provide Newman’s arguments with their pound of flesh, but he gives them an extra thrust by measuring Protestant language against the yardstick of ontological reality, bluntly opposed to the merely nominal, as when he insists that Lutheran justification is “a declaration of what neither has been, is, nor ever will be” (p. 78). This ontological emphasis deafens him to Protestant claims to be attending to a subtler existential reality. If the Lutheran constructions are sometimes strained, Newman’s own account of inherent righteousness becomes no less shadowy once it exceeds its biblical warrant and resorts to metaphysical underpinnings.

It cannot be assumed that the issues are automatically translatable into terms of being and non-being. The immediate recourse to such terms forces a reduction of Protestantism to a nominalistic extrinsicism – “that the scheme of salvation should be one of names and understandings; that we should be but said to be just, said to have a righteousness, said to please God” (p. 56). Such ontological short-circuiting of the discussion blinded Roman Catholic theologians until recently to the fact that justification for Luther is not merely a non-accounting but also a making new, whereby Christ’s justice really becomes ours, so that “God does not declare righteous without at the same time and for the sake of that declaration beginning the renewal”. (See M. Schmaus, Katholische Dogmatik III/2, Munich, 1951, pp. 108-10; Pesch, p. 302.)

Justification establishes a community between God and man. which cannot be without effect; though it is not in view of the anticipated renewal that God declares the sinner justified. (See Hermann as quoted by Kösters, 1964, pp. 209-10.) The shift from peccatum regnans, sin as ruling, to peccatum regnatum, sin as ruled (WA 8, pp. 91-5), is a profound change in the individual’s relation to God, the beginning of renewal and good works. “The Christian ‘possesses’ in the personal realm a perfect righteousness, since it is the alien, reputed righteousness of Christ; at the same time, however, a partial, growing righteousness is conferred on him through God’s grace in the ontic realm” (H. Hübner, Rechtfertigung und Heiligung in Luthers Römerbriefvorlesung, Wittenberg, 1965, p. 115). Newman’s categories make no room for such a differentiation of the personal and the ontic. He does note the theory that “sin in the regenerate has lost its formal part, which is guilt, and has only its matter remaining” (p. 362), but remains unimpressed.

The claim that the justified are still sinners, if judged by the Law, and are righteous only as they cling in faith to Christ, seems to him to evacuate the substance of salvation. Yet he remarks that those who believe “the infection of sin to remain in the regenerate… even if they hold that it is mortal, yet that it may be through grace subdued, seem to have no irreconcilable difference on this point with the Romanists” (p. 367). Here is ample ground for an entente with Luther, correctly interpreted. It seems that it is only by a caricature of Luther that he is able to elevate the difference between the two views of salvation into one between being and non-being.

NEWMAN’S ARGUMENT AGAINST LUTHER

Let us attend now to Lecture I in which Newman tries to show the inconsistency of the Protestant view that “faith is the one principle which God’s grace makes use of for restoring us to His favour and image” (p. 5). Note that this already is misleading, tending to divorce faith as an abstract principle from the salvation it accepts. We are saved not so much “propter fidem” (on account of faith), i.e. as “fide propter Christum propitiatorem” (by faith on account of Christ the atoner, Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, p. 201) or “propter Christum per fidem” (on account of Christ through faith, BSLK p. 56).

A, McGrath calls the view that we are saved “propter fidem” an Arminian one (Iustitia Dei, Cambridge, 1986, II, p. 130). Newman does quote an Arminian author in this sense on p. 185, but the source of his view that Luther made faith the formal cause of justification is Bellarmine, De Justificatione II 4, and the language of the Reformers themselves (e, g. BSLK p. 218 and the texts quoted by Newman on pp. 135, 359). He believes that the Lutherans originally presented faith as the formal cause of justification, but then retracted this in favour of the apprehensive notion of faith (pp. 358-9). The dilemma he poses in Lecture I is more telling against the first position, but contrary to what McGrath suggests, he is well aware of the second, which tends to spoil his argument (see pp.20-3).

Newman focusses on the idea of faith being acceptable “for Christ’s sake”, and misses the more important point that faith justifies in that it accepts the justification offered in Christ: “the faith which justifies consists in assenting to the promise of God, in which is offered freely, on account of Christ, the remission of sins and justification’ (BSLK, p. 169). Justifying faith has no existence outside this trusting acceptance of redemption. One cannot abstract from this relationship of trust a formal quality on the believer’s side which guarantees that it is a living relationship.

Newman sees Luther in the light of the postures he ascribes to contemporary Evangelicals, whom he attacks in the last Lecture on the grounds “that they substitute faith for Christ; that they so regard it, that instead of being the way to Him, it is in the way; that they make it something to rest in” (p. 324). He cites “even Luther” as a forceful voice against this subiectivism (pp. 331-2), though that does not prevent him from blaming it on Luther in his concluding swipes (pp. 339-41). Practically, he insists, the principle of “justification through faith” means nothing other than “justification by Christ” (p. 335). Had he begun by recognising the Reformers’ agreement with him on this point he might have launched his lectures on a more comprehensively ecumenical note.

Newman recognises that what faith _does_ is to “embrace the news of salvation through Christ” (p. 5), yet he later treats Melanchthon’s teaching that justifying faith is correlative with the mercy of Christ as if it were somehow an unsaying of the sola fides (pp. 10, 25, 244). He reports that Protestants are always ready to say what justifying faith is not, but that their positive accounts of it tend to slippery rhapsody: “that it is a spiritual principle, altogether different from anything we have by nature, endued with a divine life and efficacy, and producing a radical change in the soul: or more precisely [deadpan irony?], that it is a trust in Christ’s merits and in them alone for salvation” (p. 6). Here he has sighted a tension in the official Melanchthonian account of justifying faith, which is both simple trust and “a divine power whereby we are made alive and whereby we conquer the devil and death” (BSLK, p. 209).

The Reformers’ way of resolving that tension is to attribute what is powerful in faith to the power of Christ which it embraces. This cannot be thought out in Aristotelian terms as the addition of some quality to the soul’s act of faith. Instead a shift to a new way of thinking is required, and it is this shift which Newman persistently refuses to make. Newman reports the classical Protestant response as follows: “Faith, it appears, is to be defined, not by its nature, but by its office, not by what it is, but by what it does. It is trust in Christ, and it differs from all other kinds of faith in That towards which it reaches forward” (p. 11). But such sharp distinctions of nature and office, “is” and “does”, are surely impracticable in regard to any spiritual reality. One can conceive the “nature” of faith in abstraction from what it “does” only at the price of a quite unreal reification. Newman dismisses as evasive quibbling the Protestant insistence “that Christ Himself and He alone, the Object of the faith, is that which makes the faith what it is”. “Such a reply is evidently no real explanation of the difficulty” (p. 13). The “difficulty” here dwelt on, if it has any reality at all, belongs to a level of secondary reflection which attempts to underpin with the security of a metaphysical theory the biblical turning to God in faith. This shift of horizon from biblical faith to an objectifying analysis of its constitution or endowments is the source of what Luther saw as metaphysical disfigurement.

Newman urges what at first sight looks like an inescapable dilemma: “either faith is more than personal trust, and if so, that addition, whatever it is, is a joint instrument with it in our justification; or… it is nothing more, and then it is not necessarily living and operative faith” (p. 13). J. A. Möhler pursues a similar argument in his Symbolik of 1832 (5th edn, 1838; ed. J. R. Geiselmann, Cologne, 1958, pp. 199-230; H. Chadwick, in “The Lectures on Justification” (Newman after a Hundred Years, ed. I. Ker and A.G. Hill, Oxford, 1990, pp. 287-308; p. 292) says that Newman read Möhler immediately after correcting the proofs of the Lectures, contrary to McGrath’s suggestion that he may have consulted him in French translation.)

But this opposition between faith as mere trust like that of “the servant in the parable” (p. 8; Mt 18:26) and faith as identical with “love, gratitude, devotion, belief, holiness, repentance, hope, dutifulness, and all other graces” (p. 7) caricatures Protestant usage. For on the one hand the content of faith intrinsically differentiates it from “mere trust”, while, on the other, though faith frees us to love, which is the fulfilling of the Law (Gal 5:1-18), yet faith receives Christ’s freedom and justification independently of these works.

When Newman reports ironically the claim that “the mere preaching of reconciliation… has been found to act upon the soul in a remarkable way for its conversion and renewal” (p. 18; cf. p.257) he misses the strength of this Pauline nexus of faith and renewal.

How, he asks, can a mere “fiduciary apprehension” be lively or lead to good works? Presuming that “trust is not necessarily lively faith” he goes on to the other horn of the dilemma: “Shall we define the justifying faith of the Lutherans to be faith which is lively? This is a more adequate account of it, but a less consistent one. For what is meant by lively?” (p. 8). To this disjunction between the lively and the fiducial the Reformers would reply that the trusting reception of Christ’s redemption can never be less than enlivening. But Newman insists that lively faith must have something “discriminating and characteristic” (p. 9).

Again and again he asks, “What then is the _life_ of faith? What is that which makes it what it is?... what is that property in it which makes it… acceptable?” (p. 9).The power of the rhetoric depends on misapplied logic. In demanding an objectified account of “justifying faith” Newman is thinking of faith in an abstract and unreal way as a definable quality of the substantial soul. This is as remote from the Pauline language of faith as analogous definitions of love would be from what love lyrics convey.

Newman knows that his style of analysis is objectionable to his opponents: “We are told that such inquiries are an undue exaltation of human reason, or at least an unseasonable exercise of it” (p. 11). He does not consider the possibility that it is not so much “human reason” as the particular type of reasoning which he is applying that is inappropriate. His question about the formal quality of lively faith in abstraction from the faith-relation is not an innocent or neutral exercise of “human reason’, but one shaped by Aristotelian metaphysics.

In reply to the objection that the doctrine of justification by faith cannot appear to its advantage “in controversy, which employs the language of the unregenerate” (p. 15), Newman insists that in that case Protestant dogmatics itself is a mistaken venture, doomed to defective definitions and illogical reasonings. Here again his Aristotelianism prevents him from first asking what counts as an adequate definition and what kind of logical stringency can appropriately be demanded. The issue of the appropriateness of metaphysical language has almost surfaced: it is not the “language of the unregenerate” that is inappropriate but the logic of formal qualities that inevitably misses the Word-event and the relations it creates. Newman’s dilemma does not score a knock-out, as the Protestant escape-routes are not entirely blocked off and given less rigidly ontological presuppositions could seem perfectly viable. In Loss and Gain (London, 1906, pp. 137-54) these inconclusive arguments are recycled as comic dialogue between Evangelical numbskulls and thus given the conclusiveness of satire.

NEGLECTED FIDUCIA

Throughout this argument Newman touches the topic of faith as trust very gingerly, and with a view to exposing it as an abstraction. The variety of his own approaches to the notion of faith scarcely admits of reduction to univocity, though neither is it a wallowing in contradiction. What holds the diverse treatments together is an agnostic mood that suspends too heavy an investment in any one of them.

In one version, faith justifies by “continually pleading our Lord’s merits before God” and by being “the first recipient of the Spirit, the root, and therefore the earnest and anticipation of perfect obedience” (p. 36). This sounds rather strong, but elsewhere it is reduced to the claim that faith has merely a “sustaining” role, enabling us to hold on to the justification received. Why it should have this role at all is far from clear: “If by ‘standing’ be meant… being in a justified state, faith…is that which operates in keeping us in it. Why it does so, is altogether a distinct question, and one perhaps which we cannot adequately determine. But whatever be God’s inscrutable reasons for thus connecting faith immediately with his evangelical gifts, so has He done” (p. 233). (For a rich discussion of this question, see Pesch, 195-262.)

The Lutheran answer that faith alone puts us in a position of pure, passive receiving correlative to the gratuitous divine gift (which was well expounded on pp. 18-23, but in a hostile context) is blocked off by an insistence (more Bellarminian than Tridentine perhaps, cf. DS 1526-7) that faith is not trust but believing assent to revealed truth, which is shared by devils and saints alike. The fiducial note can creep back only secondarily to this.

Faith’s role is thus made so mysterious as to be tenuous: “We have no reason for supposing that the supernatural providences of God are not ordered upon a system of antecedents or second causes as precise and minute as is the natural system. Faith may be as a key unlocking for us the treasures of divine mercy, and the only key” (p.215). Lecture X culminates in a still weaker model of justifying faith as “an emblem or image of the free grace of our redemption” (p. 244). Justification by faith becomes a mystery to be undergone, not, as it was for Luther, an intelligible solution to a concrete problem. Indeed, Newman falls behind Trent in his grasp of the necessary sequence whereby faith comes first in the process of salvation: “faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification” (DS 1532). (Möhler, pp. 186-94, is clearer on this point. On DS 1532 see S. Horn, Glaube und Rechtfertigung nach dem Konzils-Theologen Andrés de Vega, Paderborn, 1972, pp. 226-45.)

To bridge the gap between faith as assent and its (now greatly diluted) role in justification Newman has recourse to another surmise: “Faith is the correlative, the natural instrument of the things of the Spirit” (p. 214), because it apprehends what is invisible - a tepid piece of Platonism, reminiscent of Augustine, who had similar trouble in De Trinitate IV in explaining why faith in the Word incarnate should be the necessary “way” to the “fatherland” of the vision of God. (The early Luther still worked with this Augustinian schema: “They wish to hear and contemplate the eternal Word, though not yet first justified and having the eyes of their heart cleansed by the incarnate Word”, WA 56, 299. For Newman’s own doubts about his argument here see T. L. Sheridan, Newman on Justification, New York, 1967, p. 255.)

In giving so little place to faith as fiducia, Newman seems to have impeded his own grasp of the liberative thrust of Luther’s Pauline rhetoric. When he turns to define faith in Lecture XI, we are presented with a glowing apologia for faith as “the evidence of things not seen”. But his rhetoric, as if aware of its irrelevance in this context and how miserably it substitutes for the fiducial strain, falters and falls flat: “The examples of meekness, cheerfulness, contentment, silent endurance, private self-denial, fortitude, brotherly love, perseverance in well-doing, which would from time to time meet them in their new kingdom, -- the sublimity and harmony of the Church’s doctrine, - the touching and subduing beauty of her services and appointments…” (p. 271). The Reformers, differentiating the pregnant New Testament sense of saving faith from a weaker general usage,[25] never fall into such empty formality. (See M. Chemnitz, Examen Decretorum Concilii Tridentini [1578; Berlin, 1861, p. 183]; Chemnitz does not bear out the claim that for Protestants other senses of faith have “no connection whatever, except in the accident of an homonymous term, with that faith which justifies” [p. 6].)

Newman was closer to the Reformers in 1825 when he used the word “faith” in two senses: “as a kind of knowledge when speaking of regeneration, as confession-of-no-merit when speaking of justification” (Sheridan, p. 153). In 1829 “as long as he was speaking in terms of growth in holiness, faith was seen to have an intellectual content; but once it was related to justification, it became merely fiducial” (ib., p. 193). The trouble may have been the thinness of his notion of the fiducial: for the Reformers it includes and surpasses the merely noetic. Newman later claims that he never really believed in the doctrine of apprehensive faith, and deceived himself into thinking he did only because he had lumped it together with the basics of the Creed (“Autobiographical Memoir”, in A. Mozley, ed. Letters and Correspondence of J. H. Newman, London, 1903, I, p. 110).

In 1838 any dalliance with the fiducial could only seem a regression to immaturity. His trust in the ontological structures of the Greek Fathers gave his faith a primarily noetic cast and ruled out any need to fall back on what seemed the inconsistent imaginings of Protestantism; it may also have ended his career as a biblical thinker by making it impossible for him to expose himself fully to the Word-event.

Luther prompts us to detect, beneath the construction of the arguments, at the level of style and tone, that Newman does not subject all his theological language, including his talk of God, to the Word-event. He shies back from the dizzying possibilities of such a strategy, unable to question the subordination of the kerygma to the metaphysical structures that encompass it. This inhibition of the Word, endemic in theology since Augustine, has only recently been recognised and partly overcome in Roman Catholic theology. (See M. Bogdahn, Die Rechtfertigungslehre Luthers im Urteil der neueren katholischen Theologie, Göttingen, 1971, pp. 236-50.)

The Luther Newman argues with is the doctrinally insistent author of the post-Augsburg Galatians commentary, and though once or twice appreciating the kerygmatic force which still abounds in that work (pp. 23, 332), on the whole he misses, or dismisses, the preacher of the Word and sees only the constructor of the system. Newman’s speech remains after all ensconced in established metaphysical and ecclesiastical structures, within which its biblical echoes can richly resound but against which it can never critically pit itself. Luther is on a quite different wavelength, dislodged from these structures by a more naked encounter with the kerygma, so that he can treat with them henceforward only as provisional and fragile means. Newman’s certitude is the inner calm and joy of contemplation, Luther’s depends on hearing the Word of salvation again and again. Here we are playing the latter off against the former, but both are precious in a time which whittles away all religious notions as mere delusion.

THE LOGIC OF JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION

Newman’s critics, especially G.S. Faber, have suspected him of playing fast and loose with the logic of the relation between justification and sanctification. (See Lettters and Diaries, VI, p. 242; E. A. Knox, The Tractarian Movement, London, 1933, pp. 204-5; Toon, pp. 143-4.) He explains himself at the start of Lecture III, where he sketches an argumentative frame that has the merit of allowing movement in every direction. Significantly, this is the most confusing passage in the entire work.

The basic position is “that justification and sanctification [are] in fact substantially one and the same thing” (p. 63). But if we begin to make notional distinctions, then it can be argued both (i) that “in the order of our ideas, viewed relatively to each other, justification follow[s] upon sanctification… we are first renewed, and then and therefore accepted” (p.63) and equally (ii) that “in logical order, or exactness of idea, Almighty God justifies before He sanctifies” (p. 65). That justification follows renewal is “true in one sense, but not true in another - unless indeed those different senses resolve themselves into a question of words” (p.63). The appearance of self-contradiction is softened when we differentiate the ‘order of ideas’ of (i) from the ‘logical order, or exactness of idea’ of (ii). (i) expresses “the relation of the one to the other, viewed popularly and as a practical matter, as Augustine and other Fathers set it forth” (p.64) and is thus compatible with (ii): “I believe St. Augustine really would consider, that in the order of ideas [now, confusingly, meaning the ‘logical order’ of (ii)] sanctification followed upon justification, though he does so with less uniformity of expression than Luther” (p. 64).

In any case justification and sanctification belong together “as light and heat co-exist in the sun” so it is not surprising “that Augustine should not make a point of being logically correct, but should in familiar language speak of the Sun of righteousness, both as shining on us, in order to warm us, and as shining on us with his genial warmth, that is justifying unto renewal and justifying by renewing” (p. 64).

Calvin, in criticising Osiander’s doctrine that God justifies “not merely by forgiving, but by regenerating”, had professed a stricter logic: ‘Though the sun’s brightness is inseparable from heat, do we therefore say that the earth is heated by light, but illumined by heat?... to transfer to the one what is proper to the other, reason itself forbids” (Inst. III 11.6; see Newman, p. 376).

Newman slips the chains of this logic, to witness in popular, homiletic language to the reality of holiness. In Scripture, he claims, “our righteousness is but a quality of our renewal” (p. 40) and we are even encouraged to “justify ourselves” (p. 54) by our obedience, whereas Protestant logic forces one to evacuate the plain meaning of Scripture by a forced hermeneutic (Lecture V). (The statement about justifying ourself is blunt the first edition [p. 58], but in the third we find softening clauses: “so far as they are enabled to please Him by what they are and what they do, so far may the be said, through His secret grace, to justify themselves”.)

But can he have it both ways? Is he not blurring the message that we are put right before God by the death of Christ and that it is only on this basis that our renewal and obedience are conceivable?

Newman insisted on the ecumenical impact of his refusal of one-sidedness, especially in later life. In i874 he stresses that “there is little difference but what is verbal in the various views on justification” (p. ix) whether Lutheran, Calvinist, Arminian or Catholic. He claims to have shown that “the difference between Melanchthon’s view and the teaching of the Tridentine Council is a matter of words” (Letters and Diaries XXIX, p. 354) and “that the difference between Calvinists and Arminians is verbal – the former maintaining that justification is an act of God, but the latter meaning by it a state of a man’s soul” (XXXI, p. 260).

The 1838 Preface goes about proving this unity in a more aggressive style, justifying the “severe and contentious” approach on the basis that “no wound is cured which is not thoroughly probed” (p. vi). The irenicism of the “merely verbal” is applied strategically to muster the forces of the via media against Luther and Calvin, whom Newman was to denounce as heretics in 1841 during the quarrel about the Jerusalem bishopric.

Melanchthon escapes these strictures since, in Newman’s view, he understood justifying faith to be a mere figure of speech (p.181); this “served effectually to exculpate the doctrine… from the charge of superseding good works, as showing that really and practically it had nothing to do either with faith or works, but with grace” (p. 245). Now, while it is true that Melanchthon saw faith as obliged to produce good works (BSLK pp. 60, 187-3) whereas Luther saw them as spontaneously generated by faith (see B. Lohse, Evangelium in der Geschichte, Göttingen, 1988, p. 260), nonetheless Melanchthon excludes works from justifying just as strictly as Luther and Calvin do (BSLK pp.76, 313-16). Equally unconvincing is the effort to explain away the Anglican Homilies’ exclusion of sanctity from “the office of justifying” (pp. 225, 247-50, 261-2, 304-11) – “not the office of conveying, but of symbolizing justification” is Newman’s gloss on this (p.247)!

Luther and Calvin are almost the only theologians Newman is not able to tuck away in the loose folds of his logic. Luther’s doctrine that faith justifies without love, which “is plain enough, and no matter of words” (p. 10), and Calvin’s view that the new creation is not “involved in the essence of the justifying act” but only “joined as a necessary accident” (p. 80; cf. pp. 360, 376), are unacceptable. In reality, even this difference is not so dramatic as it appears, for neither Luther nor Calvin denies that justification and sanctification are inseparable, nor does Newman deny the priority of justification. Even the difference with Calvin is treated as merely “scholastic and metaphysical” on pp. 376-7.

His loosened logic has teeth enough only to gnaw at the thesis that “our holiness and works can in no sense be said to justify us in God’s sight” (p.390) and to attack the extreme view that the holiness of the regenerate “is not really and intrinsically good, even considered as the work of the Holy Ghost” (p. 371). In the end he can only conclude that ‘the modern controversy on justification is not a vital one” (p.400), which is quite true when it is a matter of contrasting theses in the realm of serene metaphysical analysis rather than adverting to the biblical thrust in Luther that pushes beyond the unreality of the metaphysical representations.

JUSTIFICATION REDUCED TO SANCTIFICATION?

Some of Newman’s expressions seem to court the danger of presenting a God who does not act but react, that is, whose justifying word is made conditional on his perception of requisite qualities in the soul of his creatures; though he generally avoids this by recalling that the qualities God approves in judging us are, to begin with, his own justifying gift. When we read “holiness is the thing, the internal state, because of which blessing comes” (p. 34) or when good works are spoken of as ‘forming a concurrent cause of that imputation being ratified’ (p. 95), we are brought to the brink of a commonsense rationalisation of justification as the reward of obedience.

Newman’s distrust of system leads him to accept uncritically the Johnsonian good sense of a D. Waterland, for whom sanctification ‘is necessarily presupposed, in some measure of degree, with respect to adults, in their justification’ (A Summary View of the Doctrine of Justification, Works VI, Oxford, 1856, p. 7; Newman acknowledges agreements with Waterland (p. 251); his uncritical reliance on the later Caroline Divines is criticised by McGrath, see II, pp. 130-2). The claim that justification entails renewal as its immediate consequence is the best of biblical reasoning; but to maintain that justification somehow depends on renewal as its warrant is an invitation to theological disaster. The former position chimes well with a biblical phenomenology; the latter tends to project an unreal metaphysical horizon, picturing temporal relations between divine acts, and losing grip on the realities to which it refers. To avoid all such dangers were it not better to write only in the theological passive, registering the experience of being warmed and illumined by the Sun of righteousness, but renouncing all talk of God seeing, acting, judging as conducive to misleading objectifications?

Without renewal, justification would be no more than ‘a movement of the Divine Mind, and altogether external to the subject of that justification’; it would consist merely in ‘Almighty God’s thoughts concerning him’ (p. 132). Newman summons up this spectral image of God’s action only to reject it, but unfortunately it is given a theoretical validity that undermines his earlier vision of the effective divine Word. The biblical vision is bracketed by a metaphysical framework and hollowed out by being subjected to such pallid categories as omniscience – “God sees the end from the beginning” (p. 132). Once under the sway of such representations, the biblical events of justification and sanctification have to be bolstered with ontological references.

The focus of Newman’s appreciation of the Christian condition becomes the soul’s substantial righteousness. That Lecture VIII describes it as adherent rather than inherent, so that ‘we really have no inherent righteousness at all’ (p. 187) is an interesting concession to the Luther an aliena iustitia (foreign righteousness). One wishes it had been introduced earlier and given a central place. Even this adherent righteousness is conceived as a relation to an indwelling ontological presence.

In Lecture II Newman champions the Augustinian telescoping of justification and sanctification, without adverting to the Reformers’ critique of Augustine on this point (see pp. 393-4; the Lutheran critique of Augustine is well stated in Link, pp. 236-70). They maintained that to conceive of justification as the grace that enables fulfilment of the Law occludes the proclamation of justification as the Word-event that sets the sinner in a new personal relation to Christ.

In Augustine, faith is the first link in a chain: it stimulates prayer for grace, grace heals the soul, this frees the will, which can then love justice, and the love of justice performs the Law (De Spiritu et Littera, 52). The interposition of prayer and sanctification between faith and justification undercuts the immediacy of their connection in Paul. Moreover, the abstract rigidity of the Augustinian terms and their relationships contrasts with the contextual vitality of Paul’s use of ‘faith’ and the Law’. It is only such ever-renewed contextualisation which gives a vital reference to Christian terms, and the effort to construct timeless accounts of the terms and their relationships is intrinsically falsifying. (The earlier Luther inclines to the Augustinian understanding, but already stresses the paradoxical extrinsic nature of the resulting righteousness: “external to us is all the good that we have, which is Christ” [WA 56.279]. Here it is not yet the kergygma, but a quasi-mystical self-transcending, that takes us extra nos; see Hübner, pp. 98-9; O. Bayer, Promissio, Darmstadt, 1989, p. 59.)

But the Protestant alternative to Augustine is also vitiated by metaphysical formulation which render it obtuse to its own concrete context. Instead of maintaining the tension of the step back from the Augustinian vision to the dramatic horizons of the Word-event as retrieved in their own time, the Reformers restylised those horizons in a new metaphysical system, which lacks the strength of Augustine’s, because what it intended to convey is much less amenable to metaphysical categorisation. The impression lingers that Newman has smuggled in an inversion of the biblical sequence from sin through the cross to the blessing of holiness; now the gift of holiness comes first. The originating mystery itself is viewed as an ontological gift; it is not viewed from within, as a transition from guilt and despair to acceptance and confidence, nor is the constant reliving of that baptismal exodus, the constant rediscovery of justification as a gift claimed by faith (WA 6, pp. 528-9), considered a proper form of experiencing Christian freedom. Newman’s stirring descriptions of regeneration present it primarily as being enabled to fulfil the Law, to attain holiness, through “the possession of Himself, of His substantial grace to touch and heal the root of the evil, the fountain of our misery, our bitter heart and its inbred corruption” (p. 34). Holiness, grace and baptism become ontological screens against the event of redemption. This is not an ontological arrangement for which an experiential correlative has to be cooked up by devotional exercises, but is lived as the breakthrough brought by a liberating word: “by the mere hearing of the Gospel the Holy Spirit is received” (WA 40:1, p. 330).

STILL UNDER THE LAW?

If one may find healthy catholicity in Newman’s refusal to sever justification and holiness, at the same time his efforts to tie the former as tightly as possible to the latter suggest a touch of the moral unfreedom of which the Reformers were such brilliant diagnosticians. The regime of holiness even threatens to become a Law blocking access to the freedom of the Gospel, precisely the situation which forced Luther to rediscover the Pauline dialectic of faith and Law.

Newman counters this danger inadequately, with a Platonising gesture, a spiritualising transcendence which is a weak substitute for the leap of faith. He appeals from “superstitious dependence” on the sacraments to their correct use: “to lead the mind not from, but through the earthly organ to the true Author of the miracle” (p. 286; cf. pp. 314-23). The symbolic language of the sacraments is seen as an adequate antidote. It is hard to see how the Pauline message, “You are free of the Law”, could ever be experienced as liberating or even as intelligible within the circle of Newman’s conceptions.

Newman, like Trent (DS 1569), seems to confuse Luther’s freedom from the Law with amoralism (pp.24, 28). His intense concern with the moral content of justification has an edge to it that goes beyond sober realism. One may guess from the tepidity of his youthful exercises in a Pauline mode – “in all ages and in all countries faith will save a man and (as far as we know) faith alone. Now I will tell you what faith is: – simply this: to feel ourselves to be nothing, and God everything” (March 1828; Sheridan, p.152) – that he had never undergone with unmistakable clarity (any more than most of us have) the experience that would have put him on the Pauline wavelength – the drama of awakening from moral complacency to despairing guilt and finding that Christ’s justification is the sole way out. (For a late meditation on sin see Meditations and Devotions, Westminster, MD, 1975, pp. 333-46.) His reception of that dimension of the New Testament is poor. His witness is rather to the “beauty of holiness”, cultivated in an ecclesiastical devotion that is more deutero-Pauline, Johannine or Augustinian than Pauline, and restrained from tasteless “enthusiasm” (p. 328) by a weighty sense of moral responsibility.

When he preaches the Law his words carry weight: conscience and duty are the backbone of everything - of his style, his romantic self-image, his contemplative sense of divine guidance. “No justification without sanctification” is a theme that brings out his most characteristic writing: “God cannot, from His very nature, look with pleasure and favour upon an unholy creature, or justify or count righteous one who is not righteous. Cleanness of heart and spirit, obedience by word and deed, this alone in us can be acceptable to God; that is, this alone can constitute our justification” (p. 32).

This stress on justification by works is the most questionable element in Newman’s vision, not merely from a Protestant viewpoint, but perhaps even from a Tridentine one, as we shall see. There is no need to call it Pelagian, for it does not take from our final reliance on justification by Christ’s mercy: Newman is an ardent proponent of the idea of double justification, the ecumenical position most likely to reconcile Catholics and Protestants (pp. 366-82). (See E. Yarnold, “Duplex iustitia: the Sixteenth Century and the Twentieth”, in G.R. Evans, ed. Christian Authority, Oxford, 1988, pp.204-23.)

One is made uneasy by the self-conscious character of this moral vision, as the treasuring of an inward gift. Justification in Luther unites us with Christ, not inwardly but in the entirety of our existence, and at the same time confers the freedom to rule over the world and to be at the service of the world: “most free lord of all, most dutiful servant of all” (WA 7, p. 49). Perhaps Newman’s Evangelical friends found his teaching depressing, not because they misunderstood it (as suggested by Sheridan, p. 216 and Toon, p. 146), but because they found that justification by faith freed them for action in the world as concern for distinguishing marks of personal holiness did not. (See D. Newsome, “Justification and Sanctification: Newman, and the Evangelicals”, Journal of Theological Studies 15, 1964, pp. 32-53.) This surmise depends on the reputation of the nineteenth-century Evangelicals; that the justification doctrine had quite the opposite effect in the seventeenth century, emptying the everyday world of meaning and rejecting the Calvinist reinvestment in good works, is a thesis of W. Benjamin’s “Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels” (Ges. Schr. I, Frankfurt, 1980, pp. 317-20).

The only reference to social matters in the Lectures is an almost caricatural reference to “the bountifulness of her [the Church’s] almsgiving, – her power, weak as she was and despised, over the statesmen and philosophers of the world, her consistent and steady aggression upon it” (p. 272). For Luther morality is worldly, whereas faith is what overcomes the world, since it frees one from anxious efforts at self-justification so that one can act freely, creatively and energetically in, for and against the world. For Newman, however, morality is entangled in religion in such a way that goodness has constantly to be thought of in otherworldly terms; the secular good act has value only as an occasion for religious attainment. There is much to be said for Luther’s reduction of morality to a secondary position after faith. It grants autonomy to the ethical conscience, which no longer has to look over its shoulder to see how it is doing in God’s eyes and whether it has the credits necessary for salvation. It also frees faith to welcome the tidings of gratuitous acceptance.

NESCIENT MOODS

Let us pause to take our bearings in regard to Newman’s attitude to metaphysics and logic. We are beginning to suspect that, despite his Aristotelian side, Newman is not really guided by any firm logical guidelines at all, and that his ontological realism tends to collapse into a mere commonsense insistence. We have seen that he arranges for considerable latitude in his dealings with logic, both in his discussion of how faith justifies and in his discussion of the relations between justification and sanctification. He does not allow a firm logical structure to hamper the resonance and suggestiveness of his writing.

Masterful in the conduct of sustained argument, he nevertheless does not allow his books to form closed wholes, but leaves wide margins for open-ended ramifications, which in the present work become an ever thinner, ever more dispersed cobweb, impeding a firm grasp of the biblical matter. In the end one feels that his logical posturings are a cumbersome vesture for the mobile and impulsive play of his thought. He seems to feel this himself when he lapses into suspirations in a nescient mode, as when he quotes Taylor: “No man should fool himself by disputing the philosophy of justification, and what causality faith hath in it” (p. 401).

Do we catch here, and in the similar passages already quoted, a hint of a possible Wittgensteinian Newman, who might have seen much deeper into the relativity of his language, had not respect for hallowed representations kept him back? Unfortunately, Newman’s nescient moments do not launch a penetrating skepsis but suggest rather a failure of theological nerve and an irremediable cloudiness in the via media he is proposing.

“Let us be sure things are going wrong with us, when we see doctrines more clearly, and carry them out more boldly, that they are taught us in Revelation” (p. 341).That dismissal of theological refinements could as well have been aimed at Augustine as at Luther or Calvin; nor does the step back from the novel clarity of the latter win a retrieval of Augustine’s classical pellucidity. A lack of confidence in the power of theological definitions and distinctions, as well as a latecomer’s sense of the remoteness of the terms of the debate, is what keeps Newman, unlike Bellarmine, from giving his work the final incisive thrust of a single argument. Luther and Calvin broke the hold of a certain metaphysics by a logical vigilance Newman refuses to practice. Newman’s refusal of system does not free him from metaphysical presuppositions but leaves him at their mercy.

His sense of the limits of logic allows him to slip into a scepticism foreign to the Fathers and to Bellarmine: “We know nothing of the reasons of God’s wonderful providences; why an Atonement was necessary, why the Son of God was the sacrifice: why that sacrifice must be applied in order to ‘wash away the sins’ of individuals; let us accept what is given, adore God’s wisdom, and be thankful and silent” (pp. 204-5). Perhaps directed at Anselm or at the remote anticipations of Anselm in Athanasius’s On the Incarnation, this scepticism seems to underestimate the clarity of the concrete salvation-historical accounts of atonement in the New Testament, so essential to Reformation thought.

Relinquishing the search for “reasons” he returns to the biblical phenomena, but in a way that intends to discredit the Reformers’ claims to a lucid apprehension of these phenomena. This is not the ancient negative theology, which came after strong speculation, nor the Protestant subjection of reason to the Word, but a modern weariness, which might have been given a critical turn, but which is instead hushed up in Anglican attitudes of piety and sobriety. The surrender of exorbitant claims of reason over revelation is not reflectively exploited in a critical rebound of the Word on his own representations, and it thus leaves him dallying with thought-forms in which his mind can never be fully at home.

Instead of overcoming Luther in the direction of greater fidelity to the biblical matter (and greater contemporary credibility), Newman recalls him to acquiescence in an ontotheology incapable of further development - whereas Luther had renewed the thought of God by freeing it from metaphysical categories - and in a correspondingly static representation of the New Testament message. Similarly, the speculation on the ontology of the Resurrection and Ascension (pp. 202-22) is a rehash of patristic themes, which it does nothing to renew, while remaining far behind Luther in its engagement with the texture of Scripture. Newman’s mind grew and expanded in many directions in the following half-century, but it does not seem that there was any further growth in his reflection on these “ontological foundations”.

THE ABYSS OF THE ORIGIN

The inadequacy of Newman’s commonsense realism is apparent in the way he stumbles into such homely queries as the following: how can infinite holiness declare righteous one in whom there is no holiness? Pushed far enough this would make the entire notion of redemption impossible. That the alien righteousness of Christ should substitute for ours undercuts common sense at least at the beginning of the Christian life. Newman seems to avoid contemplating the abyss of that beginning, the strangeness of that birth, whereas Luther sees faith as a constant reliving of it.

Though deploring the so-called Arminians’ tendency “to put out of sight the doctrines of election and sovereign grace” (p. 189), Newman himself dwells chiefly on the “justification of the already just” (p. 154) as the normal Christian experience, in which faith justifies in much the same sense as other good works do: “Justifying faith does not precede justification; but justification precedes faith and makes it justifying” (p. 227). “Such is justifying faith, justifying not the ungodly, but the just, whom God has justified when ungodly;… justifying the just as being the faith of the justified” (p. 237).

Here faith justifies in a secondary sense - as increasing not acquiring righteousness, “meritorie” not “formaliter” (Bellarmine, De Justificatione II 15). Indeed it is the muddying of the distinction between these two senses of justification that underlies much of the unease created by Newman’s insistence that we are justified by works. Pusey’s claim that Newman upholds the Anglican doctrine which “excludes sanctification from having any place in justification” (Toon, p. 144) is tenable only if we consistently interpret his language of justification by works as referring merely to the secondary realm of merits. In taking the state of the already justified Christian as the model for his understanding of justification, Newman projects a vision that overrides the basic paradox of the free justification of the sinner. A strained logic might reconcile this vision with Paul’s in some abstract ontological arrangement, but at an immediate, existential level the two horizons are incompatible.

Newman’s protests against the tyrannical, arbitrary, unscriptural system of Lutheranism may stem not only from a positive concern with “the beauty of holiness” but also from a defensiveness against the scandalous leap at the origin of Christian salvation to which Luther witnessed. How tepid are Newman’s accounts of that origin in Lecture III: “God treats us _as if_ that had not been which has been; that is, by a merciful economy or representation, He says of us, as to the past, what in fact is otherwise than what He says it is” (p. 67). This language tones down to the point of mere shabbiness the scandal of the justification of the ungodly. It robs sin and divine justice of their bite (which necessitates a much stronger account of the working of the Atonement than the extremely cursory references here).

Despite the touching analogies with parental forgiveness (p. 68), Calvin would protest that “any ‘as if’ must give rise to the opinion that after all God does not take sin all that seriously” (T. Stadtland, Rechtfertigung und Heiligung bei Calvin, Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1972, p. 151). Here we have a feeble external view of the process of salvation; whereas Luther plunges us in medias res, confining himself to the double perspective of the terror of judgment and the joy of being declared righteous, in identification with Christ crucified; what falls outside that perspective is “error and poison”. The lack of this perspective is reflected in Newman’s surprising vagueness about the working of the Atonement in regard to guilt (pp. 204-5 as quoted above).

He wants to give justification autonomous significance despite its necessary link to the sanctification it initiates and whose fullness it proleptically imputes. He exploits well, as we have seen, the biblical vision of the effective divine Word to convey the force of justification. But for a more precise account of what is done to us when God justifies, he finds only cold banking metaphors: “Before man has done anything as specimen, or paid anything as instalment… he has the whole treasures of redemption put to his credit” (p.74), or an emptily solemn juridical language which pales beside Luther’s experience of being made righteous.

“It is a great and august deed in the sight of heaven and hell; it is not done in a corner” (p. 74) - this is not phenomenological; it places the act of justification in a never-never land. The quote from Athanasius (pp. 76-7) confirms this impression of remoteness. The evocation of the joy of being justified is equally abstract, piling on conventional topoi in place of a single concrete point of application: “His tears are wiped away; his fears, misgivings, remorse, shame, are changed for ‘righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost’; he is clad in white” (p. 70).

It is not surprising that the autonomous justification (preceding renewal, pp.77, 85), which is thus feebly introduced, plays little role after the return, in Lecture IV, to the “popular” view that “justification renews, therefore… it may fitly be called renewal” (p. 86). Renewal, substantial righteousness (identified with passive justification, p. 99), becomes the focus of attention, in forgetfulness of the abyssal origin (active justification, the utterance of the divine Word). Though “justification is imparted to us continually all through our lives” (p. 101), this is done without the drama and paradox that never ceases to mark the Christian condition in Luther; it is a secure ontological process, not the daily rediscovery of the miracle of a relationship.

A TRIDENTINE CRITIQUE OF NEWMAN?

A. McGrath suggests that Newman misunderstood the Catholic view as basing justification on “the inherent righteousness of the individual, achieved through moral renewal” rather than “the infusion of divine righteousness which is the cause of subsequent moral renewal, and is not identical with that renewal” (II, p. 131). But infused divine righteousness does not seem as sharply differentiated from renewal as McGrath suggests. Infused righteousness, sanctifying grace and the supernatural habit of charity seem to coincide as the “single formal cause” (DS 1529)of justification. Trent describes justification as a gift of divine righteousness by which “we are renewed in the spirit of our mind” (ib.) and identifies it with “the sanctification and renewal of the inner man through a voluntary acceptance of grace” (DS 1528). This language telescopes infused righteousness and renewal of life - much as Newman does, when he identifies the Tridentine (Augustinian) “righteousness of God whereby he makes us righteous” with “renovation of spirit and the good works thence proceeding” (p. 349). He points out that the question of a real distinction between them (between “justifying grace” and “charity”) was disputed between Dominicans and Franciscans at Trent and left open (p. 351).

However, Newman may occasionally court a dangerous confusion between justification by this supernatural principle and justification by works. He speaks of “obedience” as “the one condition, the one thing in us which involves acceptance on God’s part, that one requisite, in naming which all we need is named” (p. 39), and he identifies righteousness with “acceptable obedience” (p. 131). This seems to be in tension with the Tridentine view: obedience conserves and increases the gift of justification (DS 1574) and is a condition of salvation (DS 1538, 1570), but the “one requisite” is infused divine righteousness.

Citing Augustine – “there the law is laid down externally, to terrify the unrighteous; here it is given internally, to justify them” – Newman draws the conclusion: “that Law then so implanted is our justification” (p. 46). But Augustine, unlike Newman, makes it clear that he is referring to the infused gift of charity: “for the law of God is charity” (De Spiritu et Littera, 29). “Romanists”, Newman tells us, “consider that that on which justification at once takes place… is inherent righteousness (whether habitual or of works, which is an open question)” (p. 349). But is it an open question? Bellarmine rejects the notion that inherent righteousness is “actual” rather than “habitual” as in contradiction with the teaching of Trent (De Justificatione II 15). Trent speaks of righteousness as an infused habit – “a power which ever precedes, accompanies and follows their works and without which they can by no means be pleasing to God and meritorious to God” (DS 1546). Is Newman attempting to smooth out here a contradiction in his own emphases?

However, he does not feel his stress on works to be incompatible with infused divine righteousness, for the obedience he celebrates springs from “the possession of Himself, of His substantial grace” (p. 34). Nor does he show any sense of contradicting himself when he declares that “the possession of that grace is really our justification, and not renewal, or the principle of renewal” and that “our righteousness is the possession of that presence [of the Holy Ghost]” (p. 137).

McGrath states that “Newman appears to believe that Protestants taught that man was justified on account of faith… and that Roman Catholics taught that man was justified on account of his works or renewal - and therefore that the via media consisted in the affirmation that man was justified on account of both faith and works” (II, p. 130). The following may be a better account: Newman believed that Protestants taught that man was justified by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness apprehended by faith, and that Roman Catholics taught that man was justified on account of a “new and spiritual principle imparted to us by the Holy Ghost” (p. 131) and the works proceeding from it – but that the via media consisted in the affirmation that we are justified “by Christ’s imputed righteousness and by our own inchoate righteousness at once” (p. 368; “in this then I conceive to lie the unity of Catholic doctrine”; cf. p. 374), that Christ’s righteousness is “both imputed and imparted by His real indwelling” (p. 181), and that justification is ascribed to “the presence of the Holy Spirit, and that immediately, neither faith nor renewal intervening” (p. 137; this is “the doctrine of Scripture, which our Church plainly acknowledges”, p. 138; see pp. 379-87 for evidence).

The staleness of these metaphysical constructions of justification may be gauged from the distance between the sense of “righteousness” on which they turn and the everyday secular usage of such terms as “justice” and “integrity”. What lends concreteness to these constructions is a myth of inner holiness as a state of soul to be preserved and deepened, a notion which has become increasingly suspect. This is enhanced by the eschatological scenario - God judging the soul - which loomed so large in Newman’s imagination, but lingers in ours only as a distraction from a more concrete vision of the Christian life.

LUTHER’S EXTRA NOS

Something is missing, we increasingly feel, in Newman’s confident discourse. It is that punch or bite which Luther’s voice never lacks, and that comes from the extra nos (outside ourselves), the idea that salvation consists, not in a modification of qualities attaching to the soul, but in a total change of situation whereby the sinner is taken out of himself. It is not that the quality of sin is removed from the sinner’s soul, but that the sinner is removed from sin as the Israelites from Egypt and given a new identity in Christ (WA 56, pp. 334-5).

For Newman the extra nos is an imputational extrinsicism. The notion of justifying faith is reduced to a subjective quality of the mind, and the all-transforming relationship it initiates is missed: “What do they mean, in short, when they say that an act of our minds changes our real state in God’s sight?” (p. 361). Again we note that blunt disjunction of subjective and objective, being and non-being, which forestalls any subtler engagement.

To miss the force of the extra nos is to miss also the vigorously Christocentric nature of Luther’s thought. Whenever Luther’s ideas are about to close into a system, the closure is disrupted by a turning to Christ in faith, and this is no stereotyped gesture but has all the mobility and creativity of a loving relationship. Here Christ is not a unitary metaphysical quantity, but positively elicits an ever-surprising plurality of perspectives in the believer’s thinking on him. In Newman’s theological writing this personal presence of Christ is screened off by an assembly of metaphysical quantities with which Christ is identified: his divinity, his humanity, his grace, his sacramental presence in Baptism and the Eucharist, his righteousness.

Similarly, it is hard for him to express God’s love for the believer as a person, since it seems that the believer is loved for the sake of qualities and works he possesses. Contrast Luther: “God accepts the works because of the person, not the person because of the works; he accepts the person before the works” (WA 56, p. 268). The doctrine of the primacy of justification over holiness was intended to keep clear the space for a leap of trust on the part of the believer and for a free manifestation of love toward the believer on the part of God. Neither of these realities offers much foothold for a metaphysical clarification, and they are already falsified in the very lucidity of the Protestant doctrine. The opposing position, which translates into metaphysical terms with suspicious ease, makes trust on both the divine and human sides conditional on the quality of holiness, and thus brings us back under the Law.

NEWMAN’S PATHOS OF HOLINESS

If we may now add a psychological twist to our audition of Newman, we surmise that for him to surrender the primacy of holiness over justification would have spelt the sacrifice of his ideal self, for its beauty and its very identity repose entirely on a certain “myth” of sanctity, quite different from the more biblical one espoused by Luther. (On the notions of “self-ideal” and “ideal self” see Freud, “Zur Einführung des Narzissmus” III, GW X, pp. 159-70; J. Lacan, Le séminaire, I, Paris, 1975, pp. 125-63.)

He sometimes allows us to eavesdrop on his intimacy: “Make me preach Thee without preaching - not by words, but by my example and by the catching force, the sympathetic influence, of what I do – by my visible resemblance to Thy saints, and the evident fulness of the love which my heart bears to Thee” (Meditations and Devotions, p. 365). Without this impassioned self-idealisation – a happy combination of challenging self-ideal and flattering ideal self – he would not be the Newman we know; he would have lost his style, his charm, perhaps also his creativity. (Yet such a sacrifice might have produced a rugged “late style” as in the cases of Yeats and T.S. Eliot; see R. Bush, T. S. Eliot, Oxford UP, 1983, pp. 226-37.) He might even have lost his conscience, for his moral self-ideal draws its power from a narcissistic vision of perfection. This enchanting vision could not be reconciled with Luther’s picture of the wart-ridden sinner who must again and again look away from self to Christ crucified, relying entirely on the imputation of Christ’s aliena iustitia. Newman’s is the saint’s desire – to be beautiful before God. The identity of the self, growing and blossoming through the acquisition of attributes of virtue and holiness, is essential [o him, and cements his fidelity to the substantial definition of personhood prevalent in traditional theology.

It is true that this cultivation of self - this perpetual sculpting of his own statue, as Plotinus urges (Enneads I, 6) - proceeds within a relation to the other, to God. Yet that relation too draws much of its vitality and fascination from its narcissistic structuration. It is a circle scarcely disrupted by the paradox of Christ crucified: “two and two only absolute and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator” (Apologia pro Vita Sua, London, 1908, p. 4). This experience calls out for the Platonic categories of interiority and presence and eclipses the drama of justification and renewal.

Newman’s contemplative sense of the presence and guidance of God always kept him within the circle of the beauty of holiness. The grievousness of obedience, of being set apart for the Lord’s service, shapes mortal clay into a work of art, brings one back to one’s true perfected self. Luther’s electrifying identification with the biblical Word cast his life in the register of the extra nos, but for Newman the essential happenings are very definitely intra nos. Both styles of sanctity have their limits; their mutual critique, which need not be a polemic, frees us to create other styles.

It is true that Newman was an ardent preacher of the Cross, but he did not attend much to the dialectic of condemnation and justification which was the core of the Cross for Luther. Justification is subordinate to the experience of the indwelling Spirit; the Cross is the purifying pain that the Spirit operates in us; this too may seem to enjoy a precedence over justification. For Luther’s dialectic of Law and Gospel Newman has a more static one of suffering and joy, and the Cross becomes a moment of metaphysical synthesis: “It is the tone into which all the strains of this world’s music are ultimately to be resolved” (Parochial and Plain Sermons, VI, London, 1901, p. 85). To view the Cross as closure rather than transition, as resolution rather than paradoxical disruption, can create a climate of paralysing masochism: “And in the garden secretly,/And on the cross on high,/Should teach his brethren and inspire/To suffer and to die” (Verses on Various Occasions, London, 1903, p. 364). This in turn chimes intimately with the metaphysics of indwelling: “And that a higher gift than grace/Should flesh and blood refine,/God’s presence and His very Self,/And Essence all divine”. Suffering refines flesh and blood as the mode and medium of its transformation and deification.

Newman could not see why faith should be the privileged instrument of justification, yet he has no difficulty in grasping suffering as the privileged instrument of sanctification. “Justification is the setting up of the Cross within us… We know that in Baptism a cross is literally marked on the forehead. Now suppose… we were ordered to mark the cross, not with the finger, but with a sharp instrument [a masochistic scenario]. Then it would be a rite of blood. In such a case… you could not receive the justification without the pain. Justification would involve pain” (p. 173). This insistence on pain is correlative with the ontological image of indwelling; the liberative event of the cross becomes a metaphysical machinery of transformation. In the Gospel, pain has a secondary role, about the same level as good works; here it is made central at the expense of the leap of faith (and hope) which is the nub of the Lutheran theology of the Cross. (On how Luther outgrew pious internalisation of Christ’s, sufferings to receive the message of the Cross as a liberating kerygma, see Bayer, pp. 66-70, 84-6, 106-7.)

Moreover, both pain and good works are concrete and situational in the New Testament, whereas Newman’s pain is an abstract and interiorised quality. The same abstraction and interiorisation marks his conception of good works and robs his ethics of concrete content. Instead, the economy of pain and transformation gives his dealings with Scripture a Platonizing and pietistic orientation. Newman’s keen sense of shame, indicating a strong defence against narcissistic humiliations, conditions both the high perfection of his literary performance and the inhibitions limiting his exposure and vulnerability. The refinement of his conscience has more to do with shame than guilt. In youth “a vivid self-consciousness… sometimes inflicted on him days of acute suffering from the recollection of solecisms, whether actual or imagined, which he recognised in his conduct in society” (“Autobiographical Memoir”, p. 92). Luther’s moral agonies were of a different order; can one imagine him blushing?

“So much stress is laid upon taking our shame away… Guilt makes us veil our eyes in the sight of God and His Angels” (p. 75). “All through Scripture we find stress is laid on one especial punishment… of a most piercing and agonizing character, the manifestation of our shame. When we consider what our feelings are now as connected with this subject, we may fancy what an inexpressibly keen anguish is thus in store for sinners” (pp. 157-8). The masochistic satisfaction with which Newman dwells on the sense of shame paradoxically strengthens narcissistic self-possession; the narcissistic wound is treasured as an experience of the self and so robbed of its sting. Luther provides medicine for a conviction of sin unknown to Newman, for all the subtlety of his probings of moral self-deception. As a keen moralist Newman exposes himself to a constant diet of self-humiliation, yet these self-inflicted wounds never undermine the lucidity of his self-possession, but rather reinforce it.

The image of the robe of righteousness (pp. 74, 133, 155-61, 170, 190) suggests the unbroken self-possession of the ego, a false innocence based on the repression of the anxiety the subject feels when made aware of its contingency, vulnerability and fragmentedness. He clutches at the robe almost as at a fetish. A fetishism protective of the ideal self was indeed apparent in his habit of preserving relics of his past – the pairs of spectacles etc. displayed in the Birmingham Oratory – and celebrating anniversaries. The comfort drawn from burying his head in the cloaks of friends (= other selves) also betokens narcissistic restoration. I am not attempting a “psychological reduction” of the kind rightly criticised in J.L. Powell, Three Uses of Christian Discourse in John Henry Newman (Missoula, Montana, 1975, pp. 12-15). Such categories as narcissism etc. are not intrinsically pejorative and are indispensable, I believe, for illuminating the dynamics of Newman’s creativity.

The “enjewelled robe of righteousness” is envisioned as “a light streaming from our hearts, pervading the whole man, enwrapping and hiding the lineaments and members of our fallen nature, circling round us, and returning inward to the centre from which it issues” (p. 161). This stylisation of righteousness as the completion of a circle of self-identity removes the subject from the dynamic interplay of freedoms in history and human relationships and robs the quest for integrity of its elements of risk and uncertainty: “we are enjoined _not_ to injure or profane it, but so to honour it in our outward conduct, that it may be continued and increased in us” (p. 156; see Trent, DS 1531).

“My soul is in my hand” says Gerontius as he nears God’s throne (Verses on Various Occasions, p. 360). That is the last thing Luther would have thought of saying! Newman’s self-recollection made impossible for him the terrific lurch of the extra nos, the adventure of finding one’s only claim to identity in another, in Christ crucified. The beauty of his style, itself mirroring the enactment of transformation, holds him back from anything like Luther’s identification with the Word. Newman haunts his own text to an uncanny degree; in every sentence we are conscious of his presence in addition to, and sometimes at the expense of, what he is saying. For each sentence he composed is a mirror reflecting the perfection of his ideal self. Something similar might be said of Augustine, Milton, Kierkegaard, James, or Proust. But in these the stamp of personality is a self-projection rather than a self-mirroring, whereas the “continual motion of mind” which animates Newman’s style is a rhythm of first striving to fulfil a self-ideal and then cherishing his ideal self in delighted self-recollection.

Take any sentence at random: “I shall now proceed to consider it [the gift of righteousness], under two chief designations which are there [in the New Testament] given to us; by attending to which we shall conceive more worthily of our privilege, and gain a deeper insight into the sacred text; I mean glory and power” (p. 161). First the lofty strenuous gesture of setting himself a task, labouring honourably under it, aspiring to fulfil the self-ideal; then the dwelling, in a majestic pause, on the satisfactory worthiness of the goal proposed (the self-ideal now considered as gratifying to the ideal self); finally, the reward, the moment of triumphant self-return in the cadence.

“The axial reality of the subject is not in its ego”, which is rather the headquarters of illusion; “that subject unknown to the ego, unrecognized by the ego, which Freud calls ‘the core of our being’" (Lacan, Le Séminaire, II, Paris, 1978, p. 59) is scarcely likely to emerge in Newman’s self-presentation, any more than the biblical subject can emerge within a metaphysics of the substantial soul. One is more directly exposed to the truth of subjectivity with Luther than with Newman, though one can tease it out in Newman too, but as repressed. “Literally, the ego is an object – an object which fills a certain function which we here name the imaginary function” (ib., p. 60). Newman objectified himself in a most attractive form – as saint, as gentleman, as a mannered and fragrant rhetorical voice, as a living, questing mind - but we may be in touch with his true subjectivity only at those points at which that imaginary screen is displaced, disrupted or shown to be hollow.

A truly puzzling question emerges when we no longer take his self-presentation at its face value: what is he really trying to say across these splendid rhetorical performances? This enigma reaches a pitch of concentration in the Apologia, a text apparently breathing confidence of justification. Luther repels or quickly shatters the narcissistic identification which, to the contrary, is the obligatory first stage in an understanding of Newman, one at which his admirers often remain fixated, thus becoming, albeit vicariously, worshippers of that most captivating of idols, the “dear self”. It is an immense point in favour of Luther’s theology that it is able to do more justice to “the excentricity of the subject in respect to the ego” (ib.).

THE FOUNDATIONS: INDWELLING AND OMNIPRESENCE

In Lecture VI, Newman insists on being told the cash-value of justification in terms of something identifiable here and now in the inward state of the individual soul. “It stands to reason that a soul that is justified is not in the same state internally as if it had not been justified” (p. 130). One might query the objectifying effect of “a soul”, which assumes that personal identity is solidly constituted outside and apart from the dynamic existential relations in which alone Luther grasps it. The word “internally” cordons off an area of individual self-possession, isolating the believer’s individuality from the communal process into which we enter in being justified. The “reason” to which such argument “stands” is a Platonically-tinged common sense which Luther would find inadequate to the biblical word.

Newman wants an inner label marking one as justified: “what is the state of a justified man? or in what does justification consist?”; “what is that object or thing, what is it in a man, which God seeing there, therefore calls him righteous?”; “I wish to insist that there really must be… in every one who is justified, some such token or substance of his justification”; “a certain distinctive state of soul to which the designation of righteousness belongs”; “the criterion within us, which God sees there… the seal and signature of his elect”; “something present and inward”; “something in us, not out of us” (pp. 130-2). The more one considers these phrases the more their discordance with a biblical phenomenology of Christian life becomes apparent. It is as if one wereto ask: “what is that object or thing in a person which is the token and substance of their being in love with another person?” To abstract such a reconstructed substance from the all-transforming relation in which one is justified is to subsume the horizon created by the Word under one governed by a metaphysics of the soul.

The biblical robe-imagery does not warrant the reduction of the pneumatic to the categories of object, thing, token; in fact the production of such literal correlatives destroys its metaphorical force. These reifications shore up a metaphysical (illusory) identity of the self and impede awareness of righteousness as a dynamic and constantly renewed relation rather than a fixed, nameable quantity. Newman’s empirical realism could have led him (with some help from Hume) to suspect that the human spirit is too much a function of mobile relations to allow itself to be examined “objectively” – even in divine judgment – with a view to detecting its possession or lack of a requisite mark or criterion.

Doggedly, he pursues his question: what substantial difference does justification make? For Luther, it is only the transcendental condition of “Christ’s righteousness imputed” (p. 131), which Newman says is “in itself no answer at all, and needs explanation before it will apply’ (p. 133). It might be explained that the empirical offshoot of this condition, that makes justifying faith the effective beginning of renewal, consists in a changed relation to sin (Pesch, pp. 283-95). But Lutherans hesitate to identify the empirical effect of justification by isolating a quality of any sort; for it is essentially a relation of the whole person to the Saviour; one cannot abstract from this relation qualities in the soul either meriting justification or caused by justification. Faith is experienced as liberation for the lifelong conquest of sin. This is the “something present and inward” Newman asks for, but that is a misleading way to describe it. To see it as “something in us, not out of us” (p. 133) would be to miss the fact that one’s whole being is set in a dynamic relationship to grace and to sin.

How foreign all this is to Newman may be gauged from his dismissal of Luther’s identification in faith with Christ crucified, his “contemporaneity with Christ” (Kierkegaard): “to say that our present state of being accounted righteous is nothing else than the fact of Christ’s having obeyed the Law eighteen hundred years since… is like saying that our animal life consists in the creation of Adam” (p. 134).The parallel between life and justification as present, inner principles shows a tendency to draw on vital or organic metaphors for the spiritual, which elsewhere produces unitary idealisations of the life of the mind, the life of faith and the development of dogma.

Newman is prepared to concede that “if it be laid down that our justification consists in union with Christ, or reconciliation with God, this is an intelligible and fair answer” (p. 134). But “what is meant by union with Christ?... if we consider Scripture to be silent on this point, then we shall say that justification consists in an unknown, unrevealed, mysterious union with Christ” (p. 134). If that is what Protestants hold, let them maintain an appropriate silence; but if they explain that faith is that in which union with Christ consists, then let them stand their ground against those who argue that it is renewal. Let them answer the question: “faith is acceptable as having a something in it, which unbelief has not; that something, what is it? It must be God’s grace…” (p. 136).

The urge to objectify here again abstracts faith from the concrete relation of its turning to Christ. He insists that there must be an ontological foundation to both faith and renewal, first identified as grace: “the having that grace or that presence… must be the real token, the real state of a justified man” (p. 136). Grace here is thought of as substance, not relation; its acting in us is conceived on the model of the soul’s acting in the body as principle of life. Then it is identified as ”an immediate divine power or presence”, “the presence of the Holy Ghost shed abroad in our hearts” (p. 137). Here the deeper foundation, the indwelling Trinity, comes into view, at first in a warmly biblical language. But gradually we are made conscious of the brackets of a non-biblical ontology, enclosing this language.

Newman goes on to claim “that justification actually is ascribed in Scripture to the presence of the Holy Spirit, and that immediately, neither faith nor renewal intervening” (p. 137). Again we suspect an inversion of the biblical sequence, threatening ontological annulment of the entire drama of justification mapped in Paul and Luther. One might turn Newman’s line of questioning against himself and ask: if the indwelling presence is the something in us, not out of us, that makes us justified and holy, how do we experience it? In justification/renewal we experience only “a supernatural quality imparted to the soul by God’s grace” (p. 136); by what extra experience do we become aware of “the grace itself, as an immediate divine power or presence” (p. 137).

The experiential upshot seems to be that justification/renewal is most authentically lived as the cherishing of an indwelling presence: “this justifying power though within us, as it must be, if it is to separate us from the world, yet is not… any quality or act of our minds, not faith, not renovation, not obedience, not anything cognizable by man, but a certain divine gift in which all these qualifications are included” (pp. 143-4).Three Neoplatonic, un-Pauline traits emerge here: the recollection whereby we cherish the power within; the apophatic reverence for its incognisable nature; the sense of removal from the world. Trusting in these Neoplatonic attitudes, Newman short-circuits the biblical experience.

Newman uses “The Law of the Spirit of life hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2) and “It is the Spirit that giveth life” (John 6:63) as proof-texts, with a massive emphasis on the notions of life and death (p. 138). The processes of justification and of spiritual enlightenment, vividly dramatised in the composition of Romans and of John, are eclipsed by this foregrounding of their final moments. An undifferentiated ontological unity is imposed on the biblical notions, preventing attention to their context and its nuances. The Pauline and Johannine notions of spirit (pneuma), equated with the Holy Spirit of trinitarian doctrine are grasped in terms of substantial life, at the expense of the dialectical, existential dimensions of pneumatic contemplation. In reducing justification to indwelling, Newman would swap the Pauline perspective as constructed by Luther for the fuller and firmer ontological version of Athanasius (On the Incarnation),who describes a conquest of life over corruption and knowledge over ignorance, finally summarised as divinisation. But here too he takes over the conclusion at the expense of the process, making divinisation static and substantial, whereas for Athanasius it is the event of the communication of knowledge of God and divine life.

Righteousness as “a definite inward gift” is opposed to “any mere quality of mind, whether faith or holiness” (p. 139). This abrupt dualism of subjective and objective further impedes him from finding a language of pneuma. The ontological “gift” is eventually mediated with the subjective by a devotional orchestration of the theme of inner presence. This gap between objective ontology and its subjective appropriation is unknown to the Greek Fathers, and indicates the restorational character of Newman’s use of their language. What makes all restoration hollow is the repression of awareness it exacts; in attacking Luther it is his own modern subjectivity that Newman wants to subject to a patristic vision which cannot truly satisfy it.

He tries to make the Fathers more vital by reinforcing the biblical basis of their vision, but he does not carry that process far enough, and is led to prize them as venerable rather than to interrogate them as witnesses to biblical truth. A subtle confusion between the firmness of biblical faith and a numbing fidelity to the past runs through Newman’s writing. Though never a barren traditionalist, again and again he loses the thread of his best awareness, seduced by the beauty of an imagined past. He found himself amid the Fathers, felt that he lost himself amid the Reformers. Did he one-sidedly allow that pattern of return to shape his life? Had he lost himself a little more, might he not have more to say to us now? He had, it is true, a broad grasp of his age, and he “changed often” – the conversion to Rome entailed a major counter-narcissistic immersion in a foreign element. Yet he is also always defending some unyielding core of identity, cushioned in devout precautions. What threatens it is kept at a distance.

McGrath finds proof of Newman’s “purely superficial engagement with the thought of the Reformation” in his failure to notice in Luther and Calvin a doctrine of Christ’s indwelling very similar to his own (II, p. 130). But their teaching is by no means easy to interpret: it proceeds in the register of identification with Christ by faith, a Christ who remains extra nos even though we can become “one person” (Luther) with him in faith (Pesch, pp. 239-45; Stadtland, pp. 118-24). (McGrath captiously suggests that Newman did not consult Luther’s text at first hand, pp. 127-9. The omission in the quotation from Luther, WA 40:1 pp. 414-6, on pp.300-1 of the “Lectures” does not prove that Newman was dependent on an intermediary or was engaged in deliberate misrepresentation. Newman’s misunderstanding of Luther’s analogy between faith and works and Christ’s divinity and humanity is in good faith; the Luther specialist O. Modalsli makes the same mistake less guardedly: “Luther can come close to a doctrine of justification through works – indeed he actually expresses it: ut vere dicitur de Christo homine, quod creavit omnia, ita tribuitur etiam iustificatio fidei incarnatae seu fideli facere, WA 40:1 p. 416. Faith incarnate, believing action justifies!’ [Das Gericht nach den Werken, Göttingen, 1963, p. 40; see P. Manns, “Fides absoluta – Fides incarnata” in Reformata Reformanda, Münster, 1965, I, pp.265-3l2]. McGrath’s argument [p.129] from verbal discrepancies between Newman’s citations and WA 40, rather than the text Newman used, is futile.)

Calvin might find Newman’s notions of indwelling to reek of the substantial interfusion of which he accused Osiander (Inst.III 11.5). Calvin’s “eminent sentence, that the faithful live outside themselves, that is, in Christ” (quoted, Stadtland, p. 121) gives the notion of Christ indwelling a refined and dynamic inflection foreign to Newman. Newman is quite aware of Calvin’s teaching that “Christ indwelling is our righteousness”, but “what is with them a matter of words I would wish to use in a real sense as expressing a sacred mystery” (p. 382). This category of “sacred mystery” fails to capture the pneumatic quality of the Pauline, deutero-Pauline or Johannine accounts of indwelling.

Luther’s language of indwelling also seems to him unreal, or “merely” spiritual, in comparison with the substantialist ontology of the Fathers: “Since then the thought of Him is ever present in it [faith], therefore He may be said to be… spiritually present in it” (p. 20). In Newman, indwelling overrides the Lutheran extra nos. Osiander, also, thought that “Luther’s language about righteousness ‘outside ourselves’ was a figurative concession to simple believers” (J. Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, 4, Chicago, 1984, p. 151), but the Formula of Concord corrects him by insisting that the divine indwelling does not precede but follows justifying faith (BSLK p. 933) and by condemning the view, shared by Newman, that “faith does not look alone to the obedience of Christ, but to his divine nature as it dwells and acts in us, and that it is through this indwelling that our sins are covered” (p. 935). In the first edition (p. 426) Newman repeats Calvin’s association of Osiander with Manicheanism, but this he subsequently retracted, admitting his kinship with Osiander: “it is unnecessary to advance so grave a charge against him” (third edition, p. 387). (G. Zimmermann perhaps underestimates the difference between a Greek patristic ontology of the indwelling Trinity and Luther’s sense of the believer’s identification with Christ extra se when he insists on a concord between Osiander and Luther on this point; “Die Thesen Osianders zur Disputation de iustificatione”, Kerygma und Dogma 33, 1987, pp. 224-44.)

The model of indwelling, “the distinguishing grace of the Gospel” (p. 147), prevails over all others, as ontologically the most fundamental, and is in turn underpinned by axioms about the substance and omnipresence of God. The metaphysics of omnipresence becomes the ultimate bedrock of this vision. As the phenomenology of justification was diluted by its reduction to sanctification (its necessary underpinning) and both are further diluted by being recalled to a spirituality of indwelling divine presence, so this chain of metaphysical grounding finally leads to the erasure of all distinctively biblical phenomena in a cold presentation of a God, characterised above all by the necessities of his ontological constitution.

“If this notion of the literal indwelling of God within us… be decried as a sort of mysticism, I ask in reply whether it is not a necessary truth that He is with us and in us, if He is everywhere?” (p. 145). A stronger reply would have been to show that the indwelling was not a mere undifferentiated mystical piety but had a precise evangelical character; Luther and Calvin would have been indispensable references in the construction of such a phenomenology. Instead Newman falls back on “a necessary truth”, which blunts the originality of his vision and prevents him from deepening it and freeing it from devotional notions of intimate presence. Once again the powerful hold of unquestioned metaphysical ways of reasoning keeps him from the existential penetration of which he should have been capable.

This failure of engagement shows up in his style, which crumbles into fustian when cut off from the springs of experience: “His infinite and incomprehensible Essence, which once existed by and in itself alone, and then at the creation so far communicated itself to His works as to sustain what He had brought into existence… may in the Christian Church manifest itself in act and virtue in the hearts of Christians, as far surpassing what it is in unregenerate man, as its presence in man excels its presence in a brute or a vegetable” (p. 145).

This God is encased in a dead ontology, which yet co-exists with a vivid phenomenology of God’s intimate presence to the soul in judgment (conscience), painfully transforming grace and sustaining love. The phenomenology was never invoked to transform the metaphysics, and so remained confined to a subjective sphere of devotion. Newman’s objective discourse on God and the soul flounders in metaphysical jargon without metaphysical conviction, and only when he modulates back to the subjective does his style recover its glow.

“Two Voices are there”: one subtle and engaging in its testimony to a lived holiness, the other the droning of a thrall of metaphysics. The task for Newman’s readers is to free the first voice from the inhibiting intrusion of the second, and to find for it the philosophical and theological language that may allow it to resonate beyond a cocoon of subjectivism.

(See also J. Morales, “Newman and the Problem of Justification”, in Newman Today, San Francisco, 1988, pp. 143-64; I. Ker, John Henry Newman, Oxford, 1990, pp.151-7. These authors’ eschewal of any critical confrontation between Luther and Newman’s account of him is to be regretted at a time when so painful a gulf may be felt between the Gospel and the Church.)

                           

From: David Nicholls and Fergus Kerr, ed. John Henry Newman: Reason, Rhetoric and Romanticism, The Bristol Press, 1991.

The Irish and Jansenism in the Seventeenth Century

“Grands hommes, éloquents, hardis, décisifs, esprits forts et lumineux; mais plus capables de pousser les choses à  l’extrémité, que de tenir le raisonnement sur le penchant” – thus Bossuet cdescribes the Jansenists, from his own official standpoint of moderation, and the few Irishmen who are among the salient figures in the annals of Jansenism never failed to live up to this description.

The first of these was a Dr John Barnewall who taught Jansenism in Louvain before ever the ill-starred Bishop of Ypres set pen to paper; the last of them was Matthew Barnewall, of the junior or Kingsland branch of this Dublin family, who played a spectacular role in the last desperate stand of the persecuted sect. I do not know what it can have been in the social position of these Lords of Trimlestown and Viscounts Kingsland that produced such ready vehicles of the spirit of extremism.

If the Irish would like now to claim the honour of having invented Jansenism, there are two other candidates even more promising than Barnewall. There is the Franciscan Florence Conry (1560/1-1629), exiled Archbishop of Tuam, the friend and inspirer of Jansenius and Saint-Cyran, whose grim treatise on the fate of infants dying unbaptised (Louvain, 1624-5), well received in Rome, was reprinted at the end of the Paris edition of the Augustinus (1640) and whose posthumous “Pilgrim of Jericho” was used and praised by Pascal. (He asked Saint-Cyran through Jansenius to take steps toward establishing an Irish college in Paris.) [According to the Dictionnaire de Port-Royal (Paris: Champion, 2004; henceforth DPR) John Barnewal (sic) was Conry’s disciple; his own disciple, Peter Walsh (1610 or 1618-1680). Walsh, one of the first readers of the Augustinus, denied he was a Jansenist. A supporter of the English monarchy in Ireland, his friction with the nuncio Rinuccini (who said Walsh vomited more blasphemies in an hour’s preaching than Luther and Calvin in three years) led to his excommunication in 1646.]

Then there is the Corkman John Sinnich (d. 1666), rector of the University of Louvain, sent by that institution to plead in Rome against the first condemnation of the heresiarch’s masterpiece, In Eminenti, 1642. He returned disappointed in 1645, to continue the battle in Louvain. Sinnich’s Pilgrim of Jerusalem (1642) was no better than Conry’s Pilgrim of Jericho as regards orthodoxy, or so at least Colonia, the acid author of the Dictionnaire des livres jansénistes, assures us. Sinnich’s monumental work Sanctorum Patrum de Gratia Christi et Libero Arbitrio dimicantium Trias was second in importance only to the Augustinus for Arnauld and Pascal. [DPR: He questioned papal infallibility in matters of fact, but made a submission to papal authority in 1660.]

Perhaps this involvement of illustrious compatriots was one of the reasons for Luke Wadding’s (1588-1657) remarkable leniency at the congregation of cardinals and counsellors which met in Rome from September 1652 to April 1653 to examine the Five Propositions. It will be remembered that these propositions, which were to cause so much anxiety and division in the church of France, first saw the light of day at the July meeting of the faculty of theology at the Sorbonne in 1649 when its syndic, Nicolas Cornet, asked that a commission be set up to examine the dangerous ideas in question, which he had come across even in student theses, ideas tending towards a fatalistic predestinationism and undermining freedom of will and the universality of Christ’s redeeming death. Sixty-one doctors of the university, headed by that tireless lion of controversy, Antoine Arnauld, appealed against Cornet’s action and silence was imposed on both parties by Molé, president of the Parlement de Paris.

This could not check the sullen fermentation of the academic feud and there was always some new development or other to keep it from becoming stale, for instance the election of François Hallier to succeed Cornet, which was bitterly contested by the defenders of Saint Augustine. Meanwhile, aided by the Jesuits and Saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660), the ex-Sorbonnard, Haber, Bishop of Vabres had drawn up a petition to Rome which was signed eventually by no less than ninety-three bishops. Thirteen other bishops wrote to the pope asking him not to heed their confrères’ request and to leave the question of the Five Propositions in suspense. One of these was Henri Arnauld (1597-1692), Bishop of Angers, whose brother Antoine, once more did not hesitate to lend his pen to the fray.

All the Jansenist memorialists of this episode speak warmly of Wadding’s attitude, which does indeed contrast svmpathetically with the summary judgements of the other counsellors, reflexes of a too automatic orthodoxy. Wadding seems to have offered the hospitality of St Isidore’s, the Roman college he founded in 1625, to Louis Gorin de Saint-Amour, envoy of the thirteen bishops and of the Augustinian party at the university, just as he had to John Sinnich ten years before and to Bourgeois who came to Rome in 1645 to defend Arnauld’s De la fréquente communion. Wadding had also known Conry in Madrid.

But Wadding was not invited to take part in the Congregation of the Inquisition which went ahead with the drafting of Cum Occasione, the Bull which made it clear that the battle of Jansenism would be a bloodier one, bringing it into more dangerous resistance to the highest authorities of church and state than the piety and learning of its representatives and the hallowed respectability of its sources might have led the optimistic to expect. Nor was orthodoxy slow to show its teeth: an Irish Dominican, John Nolan, was arrested shortly after this by the Roman Inquisition, no doubt for his resistance to the Bull, though Saint-Amour, in the last sad pages of his journal, consoles himself with the opinion that this was not the reason, that the fortunes of Augustinianism could never have fallen so low. Be that as it may, Fr Nolan was clapped in the prison of the Inquisition where he died three years later.

L’AFFAIRE DES HIBERNOIS

But, returning now to the fair fields of France and to the year of grace 1651, we find Irishmen at the centre of two stormy controversies which broke out in the spring of this year. The first of these is known as L’affaire des Hibernois and concerns the untimely intrusion of a band of Irish seminarists on the grave deliberations of their betters.

Only the Jansenist chroniclers give a full account of the beginnings of this affair. They play heavily on the myth, partly cultivated by the Irish themselves, that these students were poor, wretched exiles, whose simple-mindedness made them the bewildered prey of whoever wished to exploit it. That clashes somewhat with their reputation in the literature of the day for untiring disputatiousness, “a talent for argument which is to be reckoned with”, as Montesquieu says in his Lettres Familières, but the poet Rulhière combines both images and seems to suggest that their fanaticism in dispute was also lucrative, as they “viennent vivre à Paris d’arguments et de Messes”.

Vincent de Paul and the Jesuits were collecting the signatures of the ninety-one bishops, as we have seen, and they now began to make similar efforts to get another document signed by the Irish students in Paris. Why? St Vincent’s motives were perhaps the purer: he had been horrified by the destructive radicalism of the views expressed by Saint-Cyran in their conversations, though by no means approving Richelieu’s cruel treatment of him, and he had deplored the falling-off in sacramental practice due to the influence of Arnauld’s stern views on the dispositions needed for Communion. In addition, his order, along with the Eudists, had the responsibility of establishing the Tridentine system for the formation of priests, and he had the special duty of ensuring purity of doctrine among the future clergy of Ireland confided to his spiritual care. Whether he also intended, as T. Wall suggests, to “force the Jansenists to declare themselves, and thus clear the academic air of the Sorbonne” is doubtful, since it ill consorts with charity to make sacrificial lambs of a few students in order to foment strife among their professors.

The Jesuits, on the other hand, seem to have been chiefly ruled by one idea in all these battles, namely, the greater glory of the Society. After a hard struggle they had regained a position in France and been allowed to establish colleges by the edict of Henry IV in 1604. This king gave them his palace of La Flèche which became a prestigious school. It is easy to see how grave a threat was offered them by Jansenism on four fronts. Firstly, Saint-Cyran’s violent attack on Jesuit ethics and anti-episcopal theory, which had won the approval of the French clergy, had uncovered the Achilles’ heel of the Society, and this line of attack was ruthlessly exploited by Arnauld and Pascal, while the Jesuits in their efforts to defend themselves only sank deeper into a scandalous quicksand of humanism, laxism and liberalism. Secondly, on a higher theological plane, the Jansenist critique of their Molinist theories of grace, coupled with the superior appeal of Arnauld’s original and modern pen in his debate with their greatest theologian, the learned, temperate Petavius, was surely distressing. Thirdly, the social influence of the Jansenists among that brilliant aristocracy which resisted the centralising policy of Richelieu, though so dangerous to themselves, might well be envied by their opponents. Finally, the schools of Port-Royal had introduced modern methods of teaching which the Jesuits regarded as specious but which made their methods look old-fashioned.

Bad relations also existed between the Jesuits and the University of Paris who regarded them as educational rivals. An extraction from students of the university of a condemnation of the Five Propositions might do something to dampen public enthusiasm for the Jansenist party; and indeed the Irish declaration, as the gesture of a brave minority, did win for them the kind of sympathy usually accorded to the Jansenists, as Saint-Amour was surprised to find.

In June 1650 an Irish Vincentian, Fr Duggan, advised the Irish students to apply to a rich layman, M. de la Bidière, who intended to found a house where they might live as a community. At their first meeting this M. de la Bidière asked them to draw up the rules of the proposed establishment and the students went off rejoicing. When they next met, however, he insisted that they state that their superior would be a Jesuit or a Vincentian, and that they formally shake off the suspicion of Jansenism attaching to them by denouncing the Five Propositions. (Was there really such a suspicion and, if so, why?) The Irish demurred and withdrew.

Back in their college the incident was the subject of much ardent discussion. Richard Nugent, a young Cloyne priest, president of a society of Irish students, and one of three doctors of theology who finally signed the document, was eloquent in his indignation at what had been asked of him, saying “I’d rather put my hand in the fire that sign such a declaration”. A little pressure was to make him discover that such words are easier to speak than to act upon. Nicholas Power [Poer] and John Moloney [Mollony] also praised highly the firmness of the students, but when Power was visited by two Jesuits at the Collège de Lisieux, where he lectured in philosophy, he began to see the matter in a different light. A mere signature was all that stood between the poor Irish and the standing and influence that would be theirs if they had a college of their own.

Gerberon tells us that the young man immediately made his wav to the Irish community at the Collège des Lombards, where his advocacy of the proposed signature caused him to abound in a Molinist sense which somewhat shocked these students of theology and made him look foolish in their eyes. This reference to the Collège des Lombards is perhaps anachronistic. An inspection in 1642 showed that this old Italian foundation had fallen into a shabby state and was inhabited only by printers and artisans. We do not hear of Irish residing there again until 1676, the year before it became the Irish college, and at that date it was sorely in need of repairs, so it is unlikely that a group of Irish students lived there fifteen years before. On the other hand, the Irish are mentioned in connection with other colleges. Thus, in a document of 1663 in the present Irish college archives, Edward Tyrrell is described as superior of the Irish community at the Collège d’Arras, Rue d’Arras. Irish groups were housed in hostels in Rue de Sèvres and Rue d’Enfer and it was on behalf of such a group that four priests were licensed to collect alms in 1624, the group being recognised as a seminary, not a college. Increasing numbers had diluted the unity this Irish group possessed and they were now scattered everywhere.

Having failed to convince the senior students, Power returned to his college, whither he next invited all the younger Irish students to a meeting in his room on 13 February 1651; the meeting was to be kept secret from the senior students. This information may be slanted, as only seven of the twenty-seven signatories of the Irish declaration were philosophers, the rest having already embarked on the study of theology. The students cannot have been models of discretion, for the seniors soon heard of it and carried the story to the astonished ears of Jean Courtin (1620-1691), rector of the university. Swift action was called for to prevent an insulting breach of the code of the university, so a beadle was sent to surprise Power’s conventicle in the very thick of their confabulations, and the embarrassed assembly was obliged to disperse.

In the following weeks, though, the students separately signed a document presented to them by Fr George White, a Vincentian from Limerick, whose spiritual prestige with the students was considerable. In his weekly talks to them at the Collège des Bons Enfants he railed fanatically against the Jansenists, identifying each by name and falling on his knees to pray that Ireland would never be tainted by heresy. (Once again we come across the suspicion that the students were so tainted in fact, though Jansenist historians insist on their ingenuous orthodoxy.)

Two deputations came to Vincent de Paul at this time, no doubt from the students who disapproved of the document, but he did not accede to their request that he stop Fr White’s activities. Ere long the damage was done. The document was signed with every guarantee of secrecy; news of it instantly reached the rector’s ears. Why did twenty-seven students sign a document so dangerous? Perhaps the answer chiefly is that it had been intimated to them that they would not be recommended for the ministry in Ireland if they didn’t. It should be remembered that, by an exceptional arrangement, these students were ordained before they began their studies, as mass-stipends were their only means of support. But no doubt motives of a higher order also influenced them, for the document strikes a rather high tone:

“Since in these most calamitous times novel opinions are being taught, preached, printed and spread in private conversation by certain people, and, what is worst of all, propounded in a catechism to the uninstructed and unsuspecting faithful, [this is an allusion to the Catéchisme de la Grâce of Matthew Feydeau, disseminated in 1649 by the Bishop of Amiens, condemned by Rome in October 1650, and defended by Arnauld early in 1651] and since there is a danger that some of the Irish, who study in greater number in Paris than in any city in the world, might be imbued with these opinions, which they might try to propagate in Ireland, our native land, so tenacious of the faith and religion of our fathers, instilling them in unsuspecting souls, and might thus perturb the Irish Church, so greatly afflicted for a hundred years and more by the insults and most fierce persecutions of heretics and so agitated by a cruel and perilous war of ten years duration, We the undersigned, wishing to oppose this danger to the best of our ability, firmly declare and promise that we will always adhere to all General Councils, Trent in particular, and to all decrees and censures of the Popes, especially those of Pius V, Gregory XIII, Urban VIII and Innocent X against Baius, Jansenius and their followers. We further promise never deliberately, either publicly or privately, to defend, teach, preach, much less put before the people in a catechism, any propositions suspect of error or heresy, or in any way condemned by any Pope, and especially the following: (the Five Propositions).”

Wall attributes this composition to St Vincent, while he makes Nugent the moving spirit of the declaration, but this is to overlook the statement of Thomas Meade that he had drawn up the declaration and that he had given it first to Nicholas Power and then to Vincent de Paul. Thus Fr White was merely completing the work begun by Power and his fellow-student Meade, no doubt the best Latinist among the Irish, when he made his tour of the colleges to collect signatures.

Meade confessed authorship when he and the other graduate culprits were summoned to the room of the rector in the Collège de Navarre on 4 March to explain themselves before the Academic Council (the deans of the faculties of theology, medicine and law, and the four procurators of nations). At this meeting the faculty of theology was represented only by its vice-dean. The judgement of this tribunal was severe. By their temerity in passing judgement on a doctrinal question on which the faculty of theology, the Archbishop of Paris and the whole clergy of France had refused to commit themselves, the Irish had infringed the authority of the university and the rights of the Gallican Church. Only a formal revocation would save the graduates from being deprived of their degrees and the others from being expelled from their colleges and barred from the university. This the offenders promised to perform within eight days.

The Procurator of the German Nation, Maurice Power, revealed how the two Jesuits had instigated the action of his unfortunate namesake, and a letter from Philip O’Lonergan was considered by the council. In this letter O’Lonergan tells of promises of ecclesiastical advantage to those who signed, but it may be that these reflected Nicholas Power’s interpretation of the mind of Vincent de Paul rather than the actual policy of the saint. A petition was also presented from the non-signatories, upwards of sixty in number in the Jansenist reckoning, who had taken counsel with their superior, Dr Edward Tyrrell, and who now begged the rector not to judge the whole nation by the foolish action of a few. This petition was signed by Philip O’Lonergan, Maurice Power, Patrick Heffernan [Hifernan] and Cornelius Macnamara.

It should be noted that the first appearance of the Irish anti-Jansenist declaration in public was in the decree issued by the rector after this meeting and solemnly published by the Grand Beadle of the Nation of France. This makes it all the more unlikely that Vincent was using the Irish to make the Jansenists declare themselves. On the contrary, it was the rector who decided to make an example of them in order to warn the anti-Jansenist party in the faculty of theology that their murmurings, too, might be out of order. This is suggested by what happened at the general meeting of the university at the convent of the Mathurins on 21 March.

The gesture of the students may have savoured of immaturity, but the scenes now to be witnessed were far more disedifying. The syndic Hallier tried to voice his indignation at the rector’s action, for he knew that this general assembly was the official place to do so, but he was shouted down by other members of his own faculty who did not allow his claim to speak on their behalf. According to the rector’s Mémoires apologétiques he succeeded in disgracing himself. In any case, the meeting was so troubled that the rector had to leave without getting the normal approbation of his acts since the last meeting – or so at least the faculty’s “Conclusion... pour les Hibernois contre le Décret de Monsieur le Recteur... et contre les Jansénistes” was to claim.

Meanwhile the twenty-seven students, far from making the promised retraction, had, in the course of their agitated discussions, once again changed their minds. Perhaps encouraged by Hallier’s display of support for them, both at their assembly and in a protest lodged with a notary after the assembly had dispersed in confusion, the Irish too had recourse to a notary on 22 March, declaring that their profession of faith had never been intended to decide contested questions as they had no authority to do so, and appealing against the decree of 4 March to the Parlement de Paris. Two days later the Parlement, in accord with its policy, issued an order that no action was to be taken against the Irish students, to the joy of the Irish and much to the chagrin of the rector, to whom the order was communicated on 29 March.

The meeting of the faculty of theology on 1 April was another occasion of division. Along came Nicholas Power and Thomas Meade, invited perhaps by Hallier, and the faculty heard for themselves the Irish story and their plea for protection against the ire of authority. Power ended his speech and found himself pinned by a sharp question of Professor de Sainte-Beuve: could he be so kind as to name the doctors implicitly condemned by the Irish statement? Before Power had time to blurt out the names of Arnauld, Bourgeois or La Lane, Hallier terminated the moment of consternation, murmuring that Power should first consult his advisers and motioning him to withdraw.

Hallier then complained to his colleagues that the rector had overstepped the mark in interfering in theological affairs. De Sainte-Beuve again threw a spanner in the works by suggesting that the only professor who taught the Five Propositions was one of the faculty not suspected of Jansenism at all. But, despite the opposition of De Sainte-Beuve and some thirty or forty others, the faculty rallied to Hallier, disapproving of the rector’s decree and the assent yawned to it (sic) by their own vice-dean. They appointed four doctors to prosecute the Irish cause “ubicunque” and “quomodocunque”, wherever and by every means. These phrases were taken as threatening possible recourse to Rome.

Much heartened, the Irish began to publicise their attitude; Hallier broadcast it in his letters; the Jesuits spread the news in Ireland and the Jesuit scholar Philip Labbe mentioned the Irish declaration in his collection of testimonia against Jansenism collected from the highest Catholic authorities. After the May meeting of the faculty of theology, the conclusion of the April meeting was printed in French and Latin and distributed throughout the city, despite vigorous protests from the pro-Jansenist doctors.

[Meanwhile a subsidiary controversy had broken out. La Lane’s Jansenist work, De la Grâce victorieuse, had been furnished with an approbation by Philip O’Lonergan, dated 27 April, in which he upbraided his compatriots for speaking out of place. Hallier made O’Lonergan the target of an attack and was answered in an anonymous defence of O’Lonergan (Gerberon says Hallier dared not attack La Lane and the six members of the Faculty who recommended his book.)]

The rector, infuriated, called an ad hoc meeting of the council on 31 May, and issued a second decree in which he particularly noted that, by appealing to the faculty of theolgy, the Irish had disregarded not only his authority but that of Parlement to which they had already committed their case. He also objected to the word “Jansenists” in the title of the faculty’s document. This decree was put before the June meeting of the faculty of theology the following day and they replied by getting a legal document drawn up in which the students’ behaviour and their own was vindicated.

Next the rector published his Mémoires apologétiques addressed to the Parlement, in which the Irish are accused of ingratitude to their alma mater and to the nation which had received them as guests, for by accepting all papal Bulls they had committed themselves to those directed against the French monarchy, such as Unam Sanctam. Their presumption in writing as if they were archbishops was also ridiculed. The anti-papal sentiments of this manifesto were ammunition for the Jansenists’ opponents in Rome.

At the July meeting of the faculty of theology, Hallier again tried to stir up indignation against the rector, but his colleagues were tiring of the affair; he contented himself with sending one of the four doctors appointed to defend the Irish, Amyot, to make an appeal to Parlement against the rector’s charges. This appeal was attacked in another Jansenist pamphlet. The story ends with a whimper, for the faculty of theology and the Irish were, it seems, obliged to accept both of the rector’s decrees, at a meeting held in his room on 28 July. A Fr Mulard continued the struggle incompetently in Rome – his credentials and his knowledge of academic affairs are called in question by Saint-Amour – and an Irish doctor of theology called Clonsinnil (a pseudonym?) published a “Défense des Hibernois disciples de saint Augustin” in September. But the publication of Cum Occasione finally settled the controversy in favour of the faculty of theology, in 1653.

JOHN CALLAGHAN, MALACHY KELLY

The other storm that broke about Irish heads in France in 1651 concerns a Dr John Callaghan (?1605-1664) of Killone (Carbry) near Macroom, Co. Cork. This zealous ecclesiastic was highly respected by Arnauld and his sister Angélique, the reforming abbess of Port-Royal, and he found a refuge in the Paris house of Port-Royal from 1647 to 1649. His life before this date I shall relate in connection with the controversies to which it gave rise.

In 1647 the Jansenist convent was flourishing and numbers were so high that in 1648 the overflow returned to the original rural abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs, which had been abandoned in 1625 because of its noxious air. The Solitaries who had begun to settle in this historic Cistercian foundation in 1637 retired to a house called Les Granges, overlooking the sunken gully in which the abbey, with its church of the same date and by the same architect as the great cathedral of Amiens, nestled amid an abundance of trees. This site was heaven to the men of the world who escaped there from the pressures of court and city. It appears pseudonymously in Phèdre :

...ces paisibles lieux si chers à votre enfance,
Et dont je vous ai vu préférer le séjour
Au tumulte pompeux d’Athènes et de la cour

The only record of a stay of Callaghan here dates from some years later, when Mère Angélique sent her physician, M. Hamon, one of the Solitaries, from her own sick-bed to that of Callaghan at Port-Royal-des-Champs, though the sisters minding her felt that she herself needed the doctor more. During his stay in Paris, Callaghan lived with Antoine Singlin, the nuns’ confessor. He spent his time writing, the only form of action possible at the moment, the pastoral and political activities he would have preferred having been denied him because of his opposition to Rinuccini, the Papal Nuncio in Ireland.

Callaghan wrote an account of events in Ireland from 1641 to 1649 and then added a refutation of the Epistula nobilis Hiberni of Paul King OFM, a defence of Rinuccini published in 1649. Callaghan’s book Vindiciarum Catholicorum Hiberniae libri duo appeared in 1650 under the pseudonym of Philopater Irenaeus.

During his pleasant retreat Callaghan also improved his social connections, renewing acquaintance with Mme d’Aumont, one of the “belles amies” of the convent who had retired there to mourn extravagantly her widowhood – she carried about with her the heart of her deceased spouse. She had first met Callaghan in the company of her brother-in-law, the Bishop of Avranches, twelve years before. Her sister was the Lady of Cour-Cheverny near Blois, in the diocese of Chartres, and through her influence Callaghan became parish priest of this village in 1650.

Callaghan must have lost touch with country ways since his boyhood in Co. Cork, for he was unwise enough to begin straightaway to tamper with the cherished traditions of the parish. He abolished a special high mass held by the villagers and replaced the usual Hail Marv at the sermon with the Our Father. The public admiratio thus excited intensified to positive scandal when bizarre rumours began to circulate about the rigours of Callaghan’s confessional.

Meanwhile the Jesuits were entertaining even graver suspicions about him. Though set on the road to distinction by his education at La Flèche. Callaghan had linked himself with their enemies and now continued to cultivate the friendship of Saint-Cyran’s nephew, Barcos, who lived not far from Blois in the abbey of Saint-Cyran. His Jansenist sentiments were further emphasised when he took the part of the Irish doctors who petitioned against their countrymen at the University of Paris on 4 March.

On 29 March, Jean Brisacier, the rector of the Jesuit college at Blois mounted the pulpit to denounce Callaghan as an enemy of the unity, sanctity, catholicity and apostolicity of the Church and as a gateway of hell. He took as his text John 7:12: “There was much murmuring in the crowd about him. Some said ‘He is a good man’, but others said ‘No, but he leads the crowds astray’.” One of the high points of his sermon was a suggestive development on Eph 5:12: “It is shameful to speak of what these people do in private”.

John Callaghan was one of a handful of priests who were pioneers in inflicting Jansenism on the ordinary faithful and who were distinguished by their close paternal supervision of their flock. Unlike other such curés, e.g. Feydeau of Amiens or Hamel of Sens, Callaghan could not take shelter under a Jansenist bishop, for Bishop Lescot of Chartres had been delegated by the Sorbonne, years before, to conduct a theological interrogation of Saint-Cyran in the prison of Vincennes and, though he had shared the venerable captive’s views on Jesuit ethics, and listened silently to his views on penance, he had done nothing to help him.

Brisacier had a fine opportunity to strike a blow at Jansenist prestige by revealing the sect at work on an unsuspecting rural people, but he did his cause more harm than good by his rash vehemence. A reply to the calumnious sermon was drawn up by Etienne Lombard du Trouillas, a Provencal priest who had followed Callaghan to the region of Blois. and who was later employed, as tutor to her son, by the Duchesse de Longueville, that most powerful of the patronesses of Jansenism, a leader of the Fronde and formerly the mistress of La Rochefouchauld. Lombard defended his friend’s orthodoxy on the questions of indulgences, the Rosary, devotion to the BVM and in particular his strict views on sacramental practice.

It appears, even from this reply, that Callaghan had indeed introduced the innovations recommended by Arnauld into pastoral practice, in particular an oddly modern and psychological rehash of the ancient penitential disciplines, whereby one delayed reception of the sacraments until one felt worthy: “we try to revive the spirit of the old canons in those who have not strength to put the letter of them into practice”. There is an implication, à la Saint-Cyran, that the Church had fallen into a state of decrepitude since those bright early days.

Brisacier must have imagined that a quote from Scripture could never be used amiss against a heretic, when he used Eph 5:12 to shock his audience. This reply shows how such allusions can rebound on those who make them: “it is indeed shameful for hypocrites to speak of the prayer and fasting that holy men do in private”. Against Brisacier’s claim that “all those who do not live according to the present custom of the Catholic Church are not Catholics”, Du Trouillas builds a logical argument, worthy in its rigour and solidity of Arnauld (who may have been consulted), to show that it is more salutary and more virtuous not to take advantage of those relaxations whereby the Church accommodates the weakness of her children.

As for Callaghan’s views on grace, Du Trouillas claimed that it was Brisacier, never Callaghan himself, who was upsetting the simple faithful by talking to them on such deep matters. A Jansenist reading of Augustine is evidenced in the statement that “Christ died for all men as regards the sufficiency of the price… but as regards the application of the price he died… for his Church”, which differs only by a shade from Augustine as read by a string of orthodox councils, e. g. Trent: “Though he died for all, not all receive the benefit of his death, but only those to whom the merit of his passion is communicated”. In the fourth section, Du Trouillas attacks Jesuit laxism, telling how Brisacier had shocked a grande dame by his account of what is and what isn’t a proximate occasion of sin.

Next appeared a Latin satire, “Calaghanus an Satyrus” (Is Callaghan a Satyr?), which invited the Irish doctor to return to his swinish origins, and suggested that he had sold his soul to be a doctor. Though Arnauld ascribed it to P. Vavasseur, SJ, who had written a similar broadsheet against Bishop Godeau, Richard Bellings says it was the work of an Irish Jesuit, while Brisacier, realising that such scurrility would undermine his case, attributed the authorship to none other thatn Callaghan himself.

In any case, the commotion reached a new height when Brisacier’s book Le Jansénisme confondu… amplified the personal insults of the anonymous libel and dragged the entire community of Port-Royal into the morass of Callaghan’s supposed misbehaviour. This was the first public attack on the nuns and an ominous portent. One sentence in particular was to earn for Brisacier an unhappy immortality, for it is noted by all the Jansenist writers and by the flashing pens of Racine and Pascal, “des filles impénitentes, asacramentaires, incommuniantes, des vierges folles, fantastiques, Calaganes, désespérées et tout ce qu’il vous plaira ». Both Mme d’Aumont, grieved that she had been the unwitting cause of the exposure of her protégé to such an onslaught, and Mère Angélique, shocked at such uncharitableness in a priest and religious, wrote letters to their friend the Archbishop of Paris, who resisted all Jesuit pressures and and published a censure of the book on 7 January 1652. This censure kept Brisacier busy for more than a year writing works like the Lettre d’importance… (6 January 1652) and collecting dossiers which would vindicate his attack on the Janesnists.

Callaghan moved heaven and earth to redeem his reputation, and Arnauld wrote hundreds of pages in his defence. Callaghan first defends the nobility of his birth: born in 1605, the fifth son of Dermot Mac Callaghan and Catherine Mac Callaghan, his distant cousin and legitimate spouse, he had lived in reduced circumstances, because his father too had a youngest son and inherited nothing and because of the improvidence of his eldest brother. His family was a branch of the illustrious Mac Carthys, whose chief was Lord Muskerry, brother-in-law of the Duke of Ormonde, but far from taking pride in this, he had dropped the Mac, infallible index of gentility, from his name and had replaced the familyarms with the holy name.

Brisacier replied by producing a jeering letter from an lrish priest, Guillemus Belli: “well I knew you and your father, a poor wretch who lived in the woods near Blarney and sold firewood for bread in Cork City”, to which Arnauld replied by revealing that this travelling priest had been involved in a drunken brawl with a woman in the market-place of Blois.

Next, Callaghan denied that he had been a cleaner and corrector in the Jesuit school at Quimper for several years as Brisacier claimed; in fact he had never set foot in that town. Instead. he claimed to have studied rhetoric with the Oratorians at Nantes from 1626 to 1628, and philosophy at Rennes from January 1629 to 1630. Brisacier admitted that he had been mistaken, that Callaghan had stayed only one year at Quimper, and produced accounts to show he had been paid from 1626 to 1627, “for fear lest he ask us for the salary of the years he didn’t serve, I make him honourable amends and freely recognise that I was mistaken about the dates”.

Nevertheless, Callaghan’s reputation as a man of integrity depends to this day on the truth or falsehood of the Jesuit’s assertion that he swept the floors and slapped the pupils of Quimper, an assertion backed by statements, and even, in response to Arnauld’s challenge, sworn statements, which seem to exclude the natural explanation that there were two John Callaghans in question.

At La Flèche Callaghan was one of those extern students who lived as best they could in the town, and whom the historian of the college describes as the most determined section of the student population. He had charge of the brother of M. de Turbilly and of Baron de Boulloy, Seigneur d’Anjou, and neither lodged with the Jesuits nor depended on their charity. His teacher there, P. Bagot, taught predestination before merits, the sinfulness of every act of unbelievers and the absurdity of Molina’s scientia media, but had changed his views for political reasons, whereas he, Callaghan, had uprightly resisted his attempts to get him to write against Jansenius. Bagot’s account is that Callaghan snubbed him when he tried to recall him to orthodoxy.

I omit the futile controversy about the legitimacy of Callaghan’s doctorate, which he must have received in 1636 or 1637. It was on the benches of the Sorbonne that the Abbé Mazure, curé of St Paul, perverted him to Jansenism, as the insinuating Rapin relates, and his contradictory story that Ormonde’s sisters, Lady Muskerry and Lady Hamilton, introduced him to Mazure may be disregarded, since these ladies set foot on French soil only in 1651.

He then returned to Ireland, but was back in France in 1642, when his influence with the nuncio in Paris aroused the mistrust of the Irish Jesuits there, who complained of him to Luke Wadding. Mazure had him appointed chaplain to the Princesse de Guemené, yet another of Port-Royal’s elegant patronesses.

He returned to Ireland in 1645 as a secret agent of Jansenism, according to Rapin, who is followed somewhat uncritically by Boyle. His companions were Patrick Heffernan, Cashel, Edmund Butler (whom Rapin’s annotator identifies with the first superior of the Irish college, Edward Butler), Power, Mulryan and Cahill. Rinuccini quickly smoked out the agents of evil, and Callaghan founded instead a Jansenist college in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau with Heffernan and Cahill, Malachy Kelly being the superior and the Oratorians, Esprit and Camus, providing spiritual direction. From this community withdrew the orthodox students who condemned the Five Propositions.

This story of Rapin’s, riddled as it is with inexactitudes, must yet retain some interest for students of the Irish College, Paris. Callaghan’s chief business in Ireland seems to have been political rather than missionary. He had some unexplained trouble in the diocese of Waterford but was cleared at an assembly there. He was recommended for the see of Cork by the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholics but his links with Ormonde and Muskerry made him an undesirable candidate in Rinuccini’s eyes. However, Rinuccini respected him and asked him to preach in Kilkenny shortly before his return to France as tutor to Muskerry’s son in 1647.

Brisacier’s charge that Callaghan had lost a contest with a Capuchin for the see of Cork is dismissed by him in his Lettre and he says that he has offered to return to Ireland only on condition of not being made a bishop. Brisacier was, of course, working on the age-old principle of apologetics, that all schism proceeds from disappointed aspirations to the episcopacy.

Callaghan also denies that he had been smitten by Rinuccini’s censure of May 1648, for he had left Ireland by then.

In his dossiers Brisacier also culled some tattle from critical parishioners of Callaghan, most of which fails to cast any doubt on the man’s rectitude. In a second “Lettre” Callaghan tells how his bishop, while chiding him for introducing changes on his own initiative, expressed approval of his defence (by Du Trouillas) which he considered adequate, and annoyance at the Jesuit’s description description of his subjects as “ignorant and sheepish. folk, easy to seduce”.

Brisacier’s pièce maîtresse, the apparently obvious heresy of Callaghan on the subject of indulgences, also failed to make any impact. Arnauld calls in question the competence of a heresy-hunter who dates Nicaea to the end of the fourth century and speaks of the Manicheans as opponents of Tertullian. He goes on to point out that indulgences refer primarily to canonical penances and only secondarily to the temporal punishment decreed by God, while their effect in the next life is as indirect as that of any good work, quoting Estius and Bellarmine in his support. Bishop Lescot also seems to have admitted the legitimacy of these views.

After his pastoral fiasco, Callaghan tried his hand at grander affairs. In 1653 he urged Charles II to appeal to Rome for assistance, and was ready to depart with Lord Taaffe in April, with a letter of recommendation from the Paris nuncio “to make the truth of the proceedings in Ireland appear” (Clarendon) at the court of Peter. But the watchful Fr Punch denounced his fellow-Corkman to Propaganda and sent Dr Tyrrell to the exiled Stuart monarch to open his eyes to the unsuitability of his envoy. Meanwhile the nuncio repented of his recommendation on discovering that Callaghan was backed by Jansenist funds, while the Protestants took fright at the freedom of religion for Catholics which the pair of ambassadors were empowered to promise. The expedition came to naught.

Clarendon, in a letter shortly after this, refers to Callaghan’s death, but this was probably a false report, or a reference to another Callaghan also connected with Port-Royal, and it is likely that the doctor lived on until 1664.

He desired to be buried in the Paris house of the community, the place where he had been most at home. However, the disruptions consequent on the efforts to make the nuns sign the Formulary of Alexander VII were then in full swing; non-signatories, i.e. those who reserved judgement on the authorship of the Five Propositions, had been deported to Port-Royal-des-Champs; and the ringleaders were confined in other convents. It was naturally impossible, therefore, that the bones of a Jansenist would find a resting-place amid the purged community.

He may have been buried in the rural convent, if there is any truth in the story that his bones were venerated with those of Saint-Cyran and Singlin by the remaining Jansenist nuns. If so, the fate of these bones was an historic one for, when the abbey was destroyed by royal command in 1709, its cemetery was subjected to a thorough harrowng and two thousand skeletons were carted away.

We have seen Malachy Kelly’s name linked with Callaghan’s, and elsewhere we hear that he was accused of Jansenism in 1653, though, in spite of this, he managed in 1677, at the cost of a legal battle, to supplant Butler, the officially-appointed superior of the Irish college. He retained this position until 1684. There is much evidence of Kelly’s long association with Port-Royal.

He acted as an intermediary between the Jansenists and the royalists who were on close terms in the years of Charles’s exile, no doubt from an apparent kinship in their situations. Thus, he communicated Ormonde’s letter of thanks for services rendered to the King to MM. Singlin and Bernier of Port-Royal in 1654, and, with his Jansenist friends, discreetly gathered money for Stuart military projects, a service for which Clarendon thanks him in a letter of February 1655. A letter of Kelly to Ormonde in 1657 reflects Jansenist disillusion with the Stuarts.

Kelly was also linked with the leading protectresses of the Jansenists. He insinuated himself into the Duchesse de Longueville’s residence by playing the part of a faux dévot, a Tartuffe, according to Rapin. He was Anne Marie de Gonzague’s confessor before she became Queen of Poland. He was the director of Sister de Ste Eustoquie of Port-Royal and we find her the “précieuse” Comtesse de Brégy, writing to him to him about the approaching storm in 1663 and recommending the signature of the formulary.

He was connected with Sir George Radcliffe, who tried to engineer a rapprochement between Anglicanism and Port-Royal. In 1665 he was linked with the four bishops who led the resistance to the Bull Regiminis Apostolici, as the Paris nuncio recalls in 1669 when writing to warn Propaganda that Kelly was aspiring to an Irish bishopric. The nuncio calls Kelly a “rabid Jansenist” and says the sect planned to have him and his relative Daniel Ryan appointed as Jansenist bishops in Ireland. Despite this reputation Kelly surfaced as almoner at Versailles and superior of the Irish, so he must have tempered or cloaked his attitude.

MICHAEL MOORE, MATTHEW BARNEWALL

Fear of Jansenist plots led to an investigation conducted by the internuncio at Brussels in 1676. Bishop John Molloney of Killaloe, who had been Procurator of the German Nation at the university in 1659, deposed that several Irish priests in Paris were eager propagators of the new doctrine. To clear themselves of suspicion thirty-eight Irish doctors and students declared their loyalty to Rome on 26 August 1676.

In 1687 when Michael Moore was to be appointed provost of Trinity it was said that he was “a person suspected for Jansenism and twice forced to abjure that heresy”. His stay at Trinity from 1688 was interrupted when he offended James II. This Moore was the most famous Irish scholar of his day. Born in Dublin in 1640 he studied at Nantes and Paris where he taught at the Collège des Grassins for ten years and then, under the patronage of Archbishop Noailles, at the Collège de Navarre. He was Procurator of the German Nation in 1671 and 1672 and, in 1677, he declined the position of rector (a post he was later to hold in 1701).

He held the position of rector of the Collège de Navarre from 1702 until his death in 1726 and was buried in the Irish College of which he had been a friend and benefactor. A slight shadow may be cast on his reputation as an ardent anti-Jansenist in these years by the friendship he showed to the last character in our story, Matthew Barnewall.

Barnewall was interrogated by the formidable D’Argenson, chief of police, the ravager of Port-Royal-des-Champs, when he was accused in 1712 of collusion with the Jansenist “cabale” and of distributing literature contrary to religion. The mud-bespattered and not easily legible copy of this interrogation in the Bastille papers gives an intriguing view of the clash of two worlds, that of the charismatic and that of the policeman.

One of D’Argenson’s tasks in his mission of bringing “clarté, propreté, sureté  to Paris was the pursuit of those who falsely claimed noble titles, hence his first question to Barnewall was why he had changed his name to de Barneville. Barnewall replied that his cousin, the commissary of the Irish Capuchins. had told him that that was the ancient Norman form of their family name.

Barnewall then related how he came to France at the age of fifteen and studied humanities at the Collège des Grassins and philosophy at the Collège d’Harcourt (?), finishing his course of theology under Pirot and Desperiers at the Sorbonne in 1685 when he was twenty-five.

Moore may have first made Barnewall’s acquaintance as a young student from his own native city at the Collège des Grassins. The Pirot mentioned by Barnewall is not of course the unlucky defender of the laxists against Pascal, for that Pirot died in 1659, but a professor quoted by Nicole in 1691 to justify his Jansenist notion of delectatio victrix. If he did teach that efficacious love was “a love superior to every contrary love… a dominant love that never fails to have its effect”, then Pirot’s influence may have remotely prepared Barnewall’s passionate rejection of the Bull Unigenitus, 1713, which condemned 101 similar propositions of Paschal Quesnel.

After his ordination in Dublin his bishop wanted to entrust a large parish to him, but Barnewall asked to return to France for further education to make himself worthy of the responsibility. Returning in January 1687 he stayed with the Vincentians. who had him appointed curate of Moussou, near Teaumont-sur-Oise. After two or three years there he came back to Paris to look after a newly-founded Irish community which lasted only a year.

With his bishop’s permission, he next offered his services to the Oratorians. He lived in their Paris house for a year, then spent five years at Saint-Paul-aux-Bois, diocese of Soissons, as director of the diocesan seminary. The Oratorians next lent him to Le Camus, Bishop of Grenoble, who made him rector of his seminary. After six years he spent a month in Rome and then returned to Grenoble to take charge of a new minor seminary. Le Camus was not hostile to Jansenism, for he furnished his approval to Saint-Cyran’s Lettres Spirituelles in 1671.

A year later Barnewall wished to return to Ireland but was prevented by the troubles there, so en attendant he stayed with Michael Moore at the Collège de Navarre, where he had charge of the students. This was about the years 1703-6. He visited Rome again to represent the plight of Ireland to the pope and on his return took charge of a hospital in Senlis.

It was an Abbè Guillard who asked Barnewall to accompany Fr St Jean de Pardiac on a tour of the diocese of Senlis to distribute alms and edifying literature. The books they distributed seem innocuous enough, though one of them, Amelotte’s translation of the New Testament, is mentioned in the Dictionnaire des livres jansènistes. They also visited to together the dioceses of Auxerre, Beauvais, and Soissons.

As regards the charge of associating with Quesnel, Barnewall denies ever having answered the letter he received from him in Grenoble. He had not signed the formulary only because never asked, and would now promptly do so. But these guarded replies were insufficient to save Matthew from a year in jail. Nor did a string of plaintive letters from Bishop Desmarets of Avranches, who was to have so much trouble stomaching the “Unigenitus”, succeed in melting D’Argenson.

Perhaps the most incriminating evidence against the pair of evangelists was a letter of de Pardiac’s which had been intercepted by the police. It is just such a letter as a modern charismatic might write, but to police scrutiny every one of its spiritual phrases seemed subversive. What, for instance, could be meant by the heading: “Vive Jésus-Christ et ceux qui se dépaysent pour lui et pour l’Evangile”? Was it not clear evidence of the spirit of a “cabale” to describe the towns of Normandy in the same language as St Paul would use about the pagan cities of Asia Minor? – Caen is “very little evangelised”; at Lisieux “only Judaism and nonsense is preached”, while Pont l’Evêque “seems to know only the baptism of John”.

During his stay in the Bastille Barnewall wrote a letter asking that a copy of Maldonatus be returned to Moore who had lent it to him, and that Moore send on an “Imitation” and an English Bible “to look for the passages abused by the Protestants in order to combat them”.

This was not quite the end. On 12 January 1736 Matthew Barnewall was arrested once again at the site of Port-Royal-des-Champs, in the company of Simon Chopin, known as the “Eternal Father”, and twenty-four other members of the Augustinistes, so called after their leader Frère Augustin, who were the most extreme group of the Convulsionaries of St Medard. “Licence consorted with madness in this sect, one of whose doctrines was that in the state of convulsion one could not sin for it was God who acted”.

In the prison of the Conciergerie, Matthew kept his mind active, recommending a young man who wanted to learn to read to the charity of a correspondent and writing his testament, a fiery credo modelled on that of Bishop Soanen of Senez, leader of the opposition to “Unigenitus”. In this document he disowns the signature extracted from him in 1712 and condemns the formulary as a trap of the Jesuits to get the bishops into their power, a trap finally sprung in the “Unigenitus”. Invoking the name of the deacon Francois and the “oeuvre toute divine” of the convulsions and miracles worked at his grave, as well as “l’illustre Sinnich lrlandois”, Barnewall went down fighting in his eightieth year in 1740.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Bellesheim, Geschichte der katholischen Kirche in Irland, Mainz, 1890.

Patrick Boyle, The Irish College in Paris. London, 1901.

Liam Chambers, Michael Moore, c. 1639-1726. Dublin: Four Courts, 2005.

Ruth Clark, Strangers and Sojourners at Port Royal, Cambridge UP, 1932.

Patrick J. Corish, “A Jansenist agent in Ireland in 1646: Rev. John Callaghan, D. D.” Irish Ecclesiastical Record 22 (1923).

Gabriel Gerberon, Histoire générale du jansénisme. Paris, 1700.

J.-M. Gres-Gayer, Jansénisme en Sorbonne, 1643-1656. Paris, 1996.

Thomas O’Connor, Irish Jansenists 1600-70: Politics and Religion in Flanders, France, Ireland and Rome. Dublin: Four Courts, 2006.

René Rapin, S. J. Mémoires sur l’Église et  la société, la Cour, la ville et le jansénisme, 1644-1669. Paris: Aubineau, 1865.

Thomas Wall, “Irish Enterprise at the University of Paris (1651-1653)”. Irish Ecclesiastical Record 64 (1944).

                      

From: Liam Swords, ed., The Irish-French Connection 1578/1978. Paris: The Irish College, 1978 (updated).

Newman on Education and Original Sin

Critics of Newman who see his thought as obsolete find the clue to his ‘greatness’ in his personality or his literary style. They read him as Valéry　read Bossuet: “Ils peuvent admirer passionnément ces compositions du plus grand style, comme ils admirent l'architecture de temples dont le sanctuaire est désert et dont les sentiments et les causes qui les firent édifier se sont dès longtemps affaiblis.” [They may admire passionately those compositions of the highest style, as they admire the architecture of temples whose sanctuary is deserted while the feelings and causes that had them built have long since grown weak.] (Valéry, 499)

Newman did not like to be seen as a stylist, and stressed that his writing was entirely at the service of its message. He aspired to 'greatness' less as a writer than as an apostle, a witness to the reality of God and to the power of divine grace. The novelist, the satirist, the controversialist, the autobiographer, the poet, are so many masks of the apostle. Kierkegaard's literary performance has a comparable diversity, and its unifying Christian purpose is clarified in ‘The Point of View on my Work as an Author’. All of Newman's writings proceed from a single apologetical intent; to miss it is to reduce them to a quaint collection of Victoriana.

This is true even of ‘The Idea of a University’, usually read as a humanistic work on educational theory in which theological concerns are muted. In fact the work can be seen as a treatise on original sin, as manifested in the blindness of the secular intellect to God. In its retrieval of the classical doctrine of original sin in terms of modern intellectual culture, the work is one of Newman's most powerful theological statements, though he affects not to be speaking theologically at all, but merely to be communicating his lifelong convictions about liberal education. It is perhaps in ‘Idea’, rather than in the more ecclesiastical books on Justification and the Development of Doctrine, the too circumstantial controversy of the ‘Apologia’, or the abstract ‘Grammar of Assent’, that his analysis of the human condition comes into sharpest focus, all the more so in that he proceeds not from dogmatic postulates but from close phenomenological study of the intellectual culture of his time. Here he uncovers the shadow of the Fall in the life of the human mind, in its dispersion and superficiality, its pride and blindness, its self-sufficiency and forgetfulness of God. He further shows, again with sharp empirical detail, how grace and salvation are brought to bear on the fallen mind through its submission to a divine teaching which restores, as secular civilization could not, intellectual health and wholeness.

AN ANCIENT PROBLEM

That original sin should be a major theme in a discussion of education is by no means an eccentric innovation of Newman. The question whether education is the bringing out of the capacities of human nature, which is intrinsically good, or whether it is rather the disciplining of a nature which left to itself is a mass of savage disorder, was already discussed in ancient China. Mencius held that people have the innate ability to distinguish good from evil and to do the good, and that the purpose of learning is to recover the original goodness of mind. Xun Zi's outlook was grimmer: “It is clear that man’s original nature is evil, and that he becomes good only through acquired training” (quoted, Wu, 44).

In the West, Christian anthropology conferred a twofold purpose on education: to bring out the capacities of the human mind, which is the image of God (cf. Genesis 1.26), and to correct the perversion of will and darkening of intellect caused by the transgression of Adam and Eve and transmitted to all their descendants. It would be interesting to measure the degree in which each of these purposes impinged on Western educational practice. The latter purpose may have weighed more heavily than we now realize, and Milton may have been giving voice to common opinion when he saw the end of education as “to repair the ruins of our first parents”.

Diderot and Voltaire laughed the idea of original sin out of court, focussing on embarrassing aspects of the doctrine as set forth by St. Augustine: the physical transmission, through conception, of the guilt of Adam and Eve to all human beings. Rousseau based his educational theory on the conviction that human nature was basically good, and to be protected, in the young pupil, against the corrupting influences of society. The fulminations that descended on the author of ‘Emile’ were aimed principally at its free-thinking deism, but the denial of original sin was also considered subversive. It is the first topic treated in his reply to Christophe Beaumont, Archbishop of Paris: ‘You say that my plan, “far from being in accord with Christianity, is not even capable of producing citizens or human beings”; and your only proof is to confront me with original sin’ (Rousseau, 937). He denies the scriptural basis and the justice of this doctrine. Seemingly unaware of the teaching of Augustine and the Council of Trent that concupiscence remains in those who have been baptized, constantly impelling them to sin, Rousseau incorrectly argues that in any case, since baptism abolishes the effects of original sin, the archbishop's objections are pointless. He pleads for a demystified anthropology which would trace human vice to its empirical social roots, and can thus be seen as a contributor to the modern theological effort to shake off the preoccupation with keeping the threat of 'concupiscence' at bay, and to rethink original sin as ‘social sin’, and ‘institutional sin’, transmitted to all individuals born into corrupt society. Education, for Rousseau, is not an antidote to an inescapable moral disease, but ideally prevents the disease from arising at all.

Though Newman quotes Rousseau rarely - the ‘Dictionnaire de Musique’, and the Vicaire Savoyard's statement that 'if the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God’ -, he must have been aware of the controversy between Rousseau and the Catholic Church, for he admired the writings of Cardinal Gerdil, thrice quoted in ‘Idea’, who wrote ‘Réflexions sur la théorie et la pratique de l’ éducation contre les principes de J.-J. Rousseau’ (1765).

NEWMAN’S VIEW OF ORIGINAL SIN

Augustine's doctrine of original sin is more comprehensive and grimmer than anything found in the Greek Fathers. Chrysostom, for example, rejects the idea of original sin as a taint transmitted to infants at birth; the ills resulting from Adam's fall do not undermine human freedom or reduce the human race to a ‘massa damnata’; concupiscence does not do violence to the human will (Homilies on Romans 13.1; see Beatrice, 191-202). Even Augustine's mentor Ambrose opposed the claim that infants came into the world tainted with guilt and that original sin merited damnation (Beatrice, 181-3). A return to the Greek Fathers has played a large role in the toning down of the doctrine in recent decades. Still, while we must reject many aspects of Augustine's doctrine, such as its predestinationism and the idea of original sin as a taint at the moment of conception, his view of the human condition contains plenty of existential truth, and his account of liberating grace is profoundly Pauline. It has been unfairly caricatured in recent publications. Newman's rethinking of original sin is a contribution to retrieving what is valid in the Augustinian vision.

Original sin was an intense preoccupation of Newman's early years. In a sermon written in 1824 and preached several times until as late as 1841, he speaks of the 'birth-sin' which is at best 'kept under, pardoned, subdued' in the regenerate, but which is still such a vital presence that it means that some sinfulness continues to be attached even to our best actions. The classical world is adduced as illustrating the ravages of original sin in their clearest form: “If indeed we wish fully to know what human nature is when left to itself, we must turn to the case of countries unblest with the light of revelation. Consider e.g. the ancient heathen...” But those closest to God also give clear witness to original sin:

“The more a man knows of God and His will, the more guilty he sees himself to be. I willingly appeal then to the consciousness and experience of all men of high spiritual discernment that ever lived. They are even stronger witnesses to the sinful and lost state of unassisted human nature than any yet adduced.” (Murray, 303,304,307,312)

Dom Placid Murray, the editor of this sermon, sees an inconsistency between these gloomy utterances and the more positive attitude expressed in the ‘Lectures on Justification’ (1838) and the study of St. Athanasius, in which Newman stresses that human nature is created in God's image and likeness and is sanctified by the indwelling of Christ. If there is a contradiction, it seems to be present in the ‘Lectures on Justification’ themselves, for there Newman fully embraces the language of the Anglican Homilies on fallen man:

“The writer means that, whatever good principles there be, in whatever degree, remaining to us since Adam’s fall, they are, to use his own expression, 'altogether _spotted and defiled_', thoroughly and hopelessly steeped in evil, saturated with evil, dissolved in evil... though good, viewed in themselves, still they are, in fact and as found in us, of a sinful nature.” (Just., 89)

Many of the published sermons equally stress the ongoing presence of a sinful principle in the baptized:

“God tells us expressly in the history of the fall of Adam, what the legal ceremonies implied; that it is our very nature which is sinful. Herein is the importance of the doctrine of original sin. It is very humbling, and as such the only true introduction to the teaching of the Gospel... This is the legend on our forehead which even the sign of the Cross does no more than blot out, leaving the mark of it. This is our shame... Ah! who can estimate... the pollution of touching merely that dead body of sin which we put off indeed at our baptism, but which is tied about us while we live here, and is the means of our Enemy's assaults upon us!” (PPS I 87, 89)

In another early sermon (1825) he preaches that it is a matter of moral realism to face up to this and to resolve on the struggle with it that goes on until the grave:

“These are the convictions to which every one is brought on, who attempts honestly to obey the precepts of God... he inherits an evil nature from Adam... his own actual and bitter experience bears witness to the truth of the declaration; he feels the mystery of iniquity within him.” (VIII 117-18)

Another (1831) expresses a somewhat morose concern with “being clean”:

“Do you expect in this life ever to be clean?... If by 'clean' you mean free from that infection of nature, the least drop of which is sufficient to dishonour all your services, clean you never will be till you have paid the debt of sin, and lose that body which Adam has begotten. Be sure that the longer you live, and the holier you become, you will only perceive that misery more clearly... What Christ asks of you is not sinlessness, but diligence.” (V 52-3)

In a sermon of 1838 original sin is a heavy, impenetrable curse:

“How it is that we are born under a curse which we did not bring upon us, we do not know; it is a mystery; but when we become Christians, that curse is removed. We are no longer under God’s wrath; our guilt is forgiven us, but still the infection of it remains. I mean, we still have an evil principle within us, dishonouring our best services… it is very miserable and very humbling: and every one will discover it in himself, if he watches himself narrowly”. (212)

The infection is evoked in haunting, almost macabre language, in 1840: “Even the best of men… have that dead and corrupt thing within them, though they live to God… a root of evil in them, a principle of sin, or what may become such” (VII 186). It seems that the individualistic focus of Newman's spirituality in these years has increased this oppressive consciousness of an enemy within.

There is a marked change in his view of original sin after his transition to the Roman Catholic Church in 1845. He now sees it less as a corruption of nature than as a loss of supernatural gifts:

“We, with the Fathers, think of it as something negative, Protestants as something positive. Protestants hold that it is a disease, a radical change of nature, an active poison internally corrupting the sou1, infecting its primary elements, and disorganizing it”. (Diff. II, 48)

Even as an Anglican, he saw Adam's knowledge of God and his 'robe of righteousness' as superadded gifts, and the fall as a stripping of these privileges rather than a corruption of nature (Just. 160); yet he also freely used the language of ‘infection' and of human nature being 'steeped in evil', which he now disowns. In a letter of 1860 he writes:

“Protestants consider original sin to be an infection of nature, so that man's nature now is not what it was before the fall... Catholics consider that the natural powers of men are enfeebled by the fall; but they do not admit any infection of nature... Original Sin, according to them, consists in the deprivation of the grace of God, which was a gift external, superadded to Adam's nature. The presence of divine grace is the justifying principle... the entrance of grace into the soul, as a presence, ipso facto destroys Original Sin... Catholics hold that Original sin is merely an external evil, Protestants an internal.” (LD XIX 363, 366)

In 1877 he reviews the statements on original sin in his Anglican sermons:

“The received doctrine with us is that original sin, as such, is a privation, and does not in itself incur eternal damnation (else unbaptised infants would incur that suffering). And I thought it had been positively condemned by the Church, but, I suppose, out of reverence for St Augustine, it has been spared. It is contained in the Anglican 9th Article. I have spoken of original sin as an infection of our nature, as _sin in the baptized_ after baptism tho' baptism really washes it away - (This, I suspect, goes beyond St Augustine) - and as meriting eternal damnation.”

He explicitly distances himself from Augustine, though regarding the matter as “an open question”: “I do consider this tenet uncatholic in spite of St Augustine”. He quotes as “the worst bit of heresy I have as yet met” a sermon of 1839: “the body of death which infects us,... sins because it is sin” (= PPS V 120). Recalling Romans 8.1: “There is no condemnation”, he comments: “To say that sin remains, yet no condemnation, is Lutheranism or Calvinism” (LD XXVIII, 250).

The text of Article 9, “Of original or birth sin”, composed by Cranmer in 1553, reads: “And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized, yet the Apostle doth confess that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin”; this means that “the infection of original sin is not (as the Council of Trent ruled it) wholly removed by baptism, but that it remains even in the _renati_” (Browne, 258). In the Catechism of the Council of Trent we read: “concupiscence or the tinder remain in the baplized, but these do not really have the nature of sin” (quoted Bellinger, 258). In Tract 90 Newman did not advert to this contradiction; it does not deal with Article 9 at all. This, “the most unsuccessful of the Thirty-Nine Articles” (O’Donovan, 72), has been faulted for its individualistic view of original sin and its lack of cosmic vision. Newman's frequentation of the Greek Fathers helped him overcome these defects, and in his Roman Catholic years he presents a broad vision of original sin as a social and cultural tragedy rather than a taint of the individual's nature. Original sin now consists primarily in a single great historical evil: the human intellect's blindness to God's presence. This is a grim vision, but a challenging one; the earlier cloud of private fatalism has lifted, and the drama of existence becomes a battle with more substantial prospects of victory. For conversion can overcome the forgetfulness of God in which human society is sunk; it is not a dead mass of corruption that one is condemned to carry with one until death.

Newman's initial, mistaken impression that the Church had condemned the Augustinian doctrine found in Article 9 may derive from his reading of the Tridentine documents. Augustine identified concupiscence with original sin; an identification corrected by Aquinas for whom concupiscence is merely the material element of original sin (see Beatrice, 94). According to Augustine, concupiscence continues in the redeemed, but 'it is not imputed as sin' (On Marriage and Concupiscence I 28, 36), or it is ‘sin’, only in a loose sense (ib., I 25); in any case we are free, through grace, not to consent to it (ib., I 30-7; Against the Two Letters of the Pelagians I 18-25). When Newman preached that concupiscence was sin (though not going so far as to call it an active sinning) he gave a Lutheran twist to the teaching of Augustine and of Article 9. Such an emphasis is more depressing in Newman than in Luther, for Newman's only remedy for this residual sin is to watch oneself constantly; there is a Pelagian undertone to this, a suggestion that “Christ has done his part, now you must do yours”. Luther, in contrast, teaches that when we look at ourselves we see ourselves helplessly bound to sin, but that when we look to Christ in faith, claiming his righteousness, then we see ourselves as free, as righteous, as saints. Newman is too attached to an ontological, metaphysical account of the processes of justification and sanctification, derived from Augustine and Robert Bellarmine, to fully appreciate the strength of Luther’s existential and situational vision of the Christian’s condition, summed up in the paradox: simul iustus et peccator. But he found his own way to Gospel freedom when he turned aside from morose brooding on concupiscence to link original sin instead with the struggle of the human intellect to make sense of the world and of history.

Did he then fall into the “vulgar-catholic and humanistic toning down of the insight into the radicality of sin” to which Karl Barth opposes the Protestant view of original sin as an active tendency to actual sins, forming along with them one single mass of sin? (Barth, 556). Hardly. He grasped the loss of the knowledge of God in tragic terms as a fundamental alienation, underlying all the chaos, brokenness, and suffering of history. The manifestation of original sin in the pride, blindness, and rebelliousness of the human mind creates a more vivid sense of danger than the previous language of pollution and concupiscence, while at the same time the path that overcomes it is lit up.

THE BLINDNESS OF REASON AS THE CONTEMPORARY FACE OF ORIGINAL SIN

The effect of original sin that Augustine chiefly focusses on is the disobedience of the passions to the will: man's disobedience to God is punished by man's disobedience to himself: 'for what else is the misery of man but his own disobedience against himself' (City of God XIV 15). The chief instance he gives of this is the unruliness of sexual desire, notably the way the genital organ escapes the control of the will, as Adam and Eve discovered to their consternation in Genesis 3.7:'the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked' (City of God XIV 16-26; On Marriage and Concupiscence I 6-7;24; II22; 76; 36; 52; Against the Two Letters of the Pelagians I 31-5; Against Julian IV 62). Perhaps in every epoch the doctrine of original sin is shaped by a sense of the typical evils of the time; Augustine's focus on sex is due not only to his picture of Carthage as a cauldron of lust but to the pride with which his opponents, the Pelagian ascetics, boasted of triumphing over passion; Pascal invoked the doctrine against the sceptics and libertines of his day; T.S. Eliot revamped it in light of the angst and anomie of the twenties; today we link it to the deep-rooted injustice and violence of human society or see it (with Teilhard de Chardin) as the necessary dark side of the travail of evolution.

Newman, in his later writings, plays down the Adam and Eve story, the notion of physical transmission, and the Augustinian association of original sin with sexual concupiscence, and examines instead the inability of reason to fulfil its promises, the way the mind is thwarted when it seeks the ultimate sense of things. The focus shifts from deep-rooted greed and craving to the ungovernable, restless intellect. As an Anglican Newman had often pointed to the blindness of reason without grace in polemic against Enlightenment rationalists who 'think that education will do everything, and that education is in their own power' and who 'think little of the Church of God, which is the great channel of God's mercies, and look upon the Gospel as a sort of literature or philosophy' (PPS V 136) (1838). When he preaches on original sin after 1845, the emphasis falls on its character as loss of the knowledge of God: 'One of the defects which man incurred in the fall was ignorance, or spiritual blindness; and one of the gifts received on his restoration is a perception of things spiritual' (Disc. 169-70). To the objection: 'Cannot we, by the natural power of our Reason, understand all kinds of truths...? How then is it that we cannot arrive at the truths of religion without the supernatural aid of grace?', he replies: 'You are born under a privation of this blessed spiritual light; and while it remains you will not, cannot, really see God. I do not say you will have no thought at all about God, nor be able to talk about Him' (170-1), but this is no more than ‘a man without eyes talking about forms and colours’ (172). Reason is capable only of that unreal talk about God whose prolixity Newman deplored: ‘Here, then, you can see what the natural man can do; he can feel, he can imagine, he can infer..., but he cannot see, he cannot love' (176); ‘grace believes, reason does but opine; grace gives certainty, reason is never decided' (178). Note the absence here of statements that nature has become evil or infected.

Newman’s most original insights on the topic of original sin concern its effect on the mind:

“Men are not moved by reason or, as he so paradoxically states it, 'man is _not_ a reasoning animal’ (‘The Tamworth Reading Room'). In the absence of a higher spiritual restraint the inevitable human tendency towards self-aggrandizement is given free rein... The best that can be expected from such intellectual refinement is the ‘mere human loveliness' of Oxford, which, while it may prepare us for the true inner transformation of grace, if left to itself will degenerate into a shallowness barely concealing a well-bred hedonism.” (Walsh, 391-2)

This judgement on fallen reason is closely linked with a conviction of the objectivity of religious truth and an interpretation of the modern liberal distaste for religious dogma as stemming from a sinful forgetfulness of God.

The world lives in ignorance of God and a state of positive hostility to religion: “the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race, so fearfully yet exactly described in the Apostle's words, ‘having no hope and without God in the world’”. This situation forces the conclusion “that either there is no creator, or this living society of men is in a true sense discarded from his presence... The human race is implicated in some terrible aboriginal calamity. It is out of joint with the purposes of its Creator. This is a fact, a fact as true as the fact of its existence;  and thus the doctrine of what is theologically called original sin becomes to me almost as certain as that the world exists, and as the existence of God” (Apol. 320-1).

This topic recurs six years later in ‘The Grammar of Assent’ (1870):

“Why does He not write His Moral Nature in large letters upon the face of history, and bring the blind, tumultuous rush of its events into a celestial, hierarchical order?... Either there is no creator, or He has disowned His creatures. Are then the dim shadows of His Presence in the affairs of men but a fancy of our own, or, on the other hand, has He hid His face and the light of His countenance, because we have in some special way dishonoured Him?” (GA 397)

Not only has God hidden himself, but the human mind has been struck blind to the residual indications of God's presence:

“I am not speaking of right reason, but of reason as it acts in fact and concretely in fallen man. I know that even the unaided reason, when correctly exercised, leads to a belief in God, in the immortality of the sou1, and in a future retribution; but I am considering it actually and historically; and in this point of view, I do not think I am wrong in saying that its tendency is towards a simple unbelief in matters of religion. No truth, however sacred, can stand against it, in the long run”. (Apol. 321)

At the time, Newman's Catholic critics felt that this discrediting of reason went loo far, and it does seem to call for correction by a more robust, Thomistic sense of the life of the mind as naturally rooted in an openness to being and to God.

Newman's sense of the godlessness of the modern intellect is coloured by the Victorian consciousness of secularization, the “disappearance of God” (J. Hillis Miller), the 'melancholy, long, withdrawing roar' of the Sea of Faith, retreating “down the vast edges drear/And naked shingles of the world” (Arnold). That consciousness was given its most fearful thrust by the godless face of biological evolution, glimpsed by Tennyson even before Darwin published ‘The Descent of Man’: “Are God and Nature then at strife,/That Nature lends such evil dreams?” (‘In Memoriam’, 55). Newman found zoos a trial to faith:

“The sight of beasts of prey and other foreign animals, their strangeness, the originality (if I may use the term) of their forms and gestures and habits, and their variety and independence of each other, throw us out of ourselves into another creation, and as if under another Creator, if I may so express the temptation which may come on the mind.” (Idea, 118).

An earlier version of this text (1841) has no mention of a theological temptation, and focusses only on the enlargement of mind: “as if an addition to the external objects presented before it were an addition to its inward powers” (US, 283). Retained in ‘Idea’ (“We seem to have new faculties, or a new exercise for our faculties, by this addition to our knowledge”), this delight in mental expansion seems in conflict with the unease just expressed. Between 1841 and 1852 Newman had perhaps become aware of how Darwinism threatened the anthropocentric world view. The alienness of nature and history to the vivid conviction of God's presence that Newman carries in his heart inflicts a narcissistic wound. To see in the living, busy world no reflection of its Creator was as shocking as to look in a mirror and see there no reflection of his own face; that is the image from the discussion in the ‘Apologia’ which everyone remembers, for it carries all the charge of the author's introspective sensibility.

Newman, at least in his younger years, saw rebellion against established authority as direct disobedience to Scripture (Rom 13.1) and a clear manifestation of original sin. Thus he declares that Lamennais “seems to believe in the existence of certain indefeasible rights of man, which certain forms of government encroach upon, and against which a rising is at any time justifiable. Accordingly what we, in our English theology, should call the lawless and proud lusts of corrupt nature he almost sanctifies as the instinctive aspirations of the heart after its unknown good. Such were the cravings of Eve after the forbidden fruit” (Essays I, 158).

The rebellion of reason against Church authority is viewed in similar fashion. The restive intellect must be checked by moral restraints and elevated by the study of theology which places all worldlier forms of knowledge in perspective. The authority of the Catholic Church is presented in the ‘Apologia’ as having this educative function. It alone can ‘arrest fierce wilful human nature in its onward course... Thirty years ago, education was relied on' (Apol., 322). The great virtue of a Catholic university is the combination, or balance, of forces, whereby it both encourages the mind to its full development and checks its proud excesses by instilling respect for authority: 'to restrain that freedom of thought, which of course in itself is one of the greatest of our natural gifts, and to rescue it from its own suicidal excesses' (Apol., 323).

lS ‘THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY’ A THEOLOGICAL WORK?

In the Preface, reference to original sin comes immediately after the opening　definition of a university as “a place of _teaching_ universal _knowledge_”:
“Such is a University in its _essence_, and independently, of its relation to the Church. But, practically speaking, it cannot fulfil its object duly, such as I have described it, without the Church's assistance; or, to use the theological term, the Church is necessary for its _integrity_. Not that its main characters are changed by this incorporation: it still has the office of universal education; but the Church steadies it in the performance of that office.” (5)

The “integrity” here referred to is that of human nature, lost in original sin, restored by grace. This is the standard theological use of the word. The Church is the yardstick of intellectual uprightness and completeness, the corrective to the deviations introduced by original sin. Thus the analysis of the essence of a university is placed in a wider context: the concrete realization of that essence under the conditions of a fallen intellect and the grace the Church brings. The Church’s soteriological viewpoint on university education is strongly emphasized: “Has the Supreme Pontiff recommended it for the sake of the sciences, which are to be the matter, and not rather of the students, who are to be the subjects, of its teaching?” (6). If the Holy See recommends the founding of a Catholic University, it is not to produce a “narrow or fantastic type” such as the “English Gentleman” but to ensure the students’ “exercise and growth in certain habits, moral or intellectual” (ib.). This moral outlook dissolves the Oxford myth of “the gentleman” into a wider anthropological vision.

Education works on the uncultivated mind: “at first they have no principles laid down within them as a foundation for the intellect to build upon; they have no discriminating convictions, and no grasp of consequences” (10). This is a normal pedagogical observation, but one may perhaps pick up overtones of a sense that the human intellect is fallen because of original sin. The ensuing phenomenology of defects of adult minds has a similar resonance; it lays the foundation for an uncovery of the deeper distortions of the mind in matters religious. The same is true of the witty account of the evil of periodical literature (13-14). Subsequent pen-portraits of various academic types, satirizing the intellectual follies and presumptions of the age, are not merely an exercise in cultural criticism; they aim also to show the contemporary face of original sin. Though Newman has many severe things to say, there is no artificial piling-on of Augustinian or Calvinist gloom, doctrinal assumptions are cashed in the small change of witty observation, and the prevailing tone is one of compassionate comedy. Indeed, the doctrine of original sin becomes “glad tidings of great joy" for its obverse is the promise that Reason can be restored and exalted by the illumination of faith, which entails a richer, more vital intellectual culture.

Discourse I gives little reason to imagine that the high theological theme of original sin will play any role in the work, for Newman emphatically disclaims a direct theological intent:

“though it has been my lot for many years to take a prominent, sometimes a presumptuous, part in theological discussions, yet the natural turn of my mind carries me off to trains of thought like those which I am now about to open, which, important though they be for Catholic objects, and admitting of a Catholic treatment, are sheltered from the extreme delicacy and peril which attach to disputations directly bearing on the subject-matter of Divine Revelation.” (20)

Is he then taking a holiday from theology, in order to develop a broader humanistic theme? Reading more carefully, we find even in this passage some indications that the educational theorist, too, is a front for the apostle, and that ‘Idea’ is fundamentally a theological work. The topic of liberal education does not directly bear on divine revelation, but it does have an indirect bearing, and admits of a Catholic treatment.

Newman promises to expound liberal views of university education, acquired at Oxford. These “have grown into my whole system of thought, and are, as it were, part of myself” and “were my profession at that early period of my life, when religion was to me more a matter of feeling and experience than of faith” (21). He will advance an argument based on empirical observation, not on ecclesiastical authority. But note the qualifying words 'simply', 'special' and 'almost' in the following:

“the principles on which I would conduct the inquiry are attainable, as I have already implied, by the mere experience of life. They do not come simply of theology; they imply no supernatural discernment; they have no special connexion with Revelation; they almost arise out of the nature of the case… though true, and just, and good in themselves, they imply nothing whatever as to the religious profession of those who maintain them.” (22)

It is implied that in what he is to say of liberal education there will be some input from theology, some connection with revelation. The reference is probably to his argument for the place of theology in the curriculum – “the question of the union of Theology with the secular Sciences, which is its religious side” (24-5). More generally, if Newman, like Arnold, aims “to see life steadily and to see it whole”, his vision is so informed by Scripture and doctrine that one cannot distil from it a purely secular vision of society or education. The principles of liberal education, sometimes “better understood, and held more firmly by Protestants than by ourselves” (22), are presented against the background of deeper principles of which Catholics have the keener awareness: “Protestants depending on human means mainly, are led to make the most of them: their sole resource is to use what they have; ‘Knowledge is’ their ‘power’ and nothing else; they are the anxious cultivators of a rugged soil. It is otherwise with us” (ib.). Catholics enjoy supernatural blessings in such abundance that they tend unduly to neglect the cultivation of natural prudence and intelligence. Newman intends to present secular wisdom about education. A philosophy of education “founded on truths in the natural order” (ib.) cannot flourish in abstraction from the religious wisdom which knows the importance of knowledge of God, as well as the weakness of human intellect and its need of divine illumination.

Perhaps Newman has not adequately clarified the status of his discourse, as the contrasting emphases in the following suggest:

“I have no intention, in any thing I shall say, of bringing into the argument the authority of the Church, or any authority at all; but I shall consider the question simply on the grounds of human reason and human wisdom... I set myself to further, by every means in my power, doctrines and views, true in themselves, recognized by Catholics as such, familiar to my own mind... I am told on authority that a principle is expedient, which I have ever felt to be true. And I argue in its behalf on its own merits, the authority, which brings me here, being my opportunity for arguing, but not the ground of my argument itself.” (24)

His argument will range widely, and its theological aspect will be expressed in broad strokes, with no close examination of the detail of theological controversy. Had he entered into such detail, his account of God, grace, and sin would have had a much slighter appeal; it was by stepping outside the discipline of theology that he conquered a theological space of dialogue with modern culture. He saw himself, perhaps, as expounding a broad religious philosophy rather than a theology in the strict sense, but as this philosophy is rooted in a particular theological vision from which it never abstracts, much of what he says can be taken as a direct contribution to theology.

He honours the theological view of university education only to move on quickly to non-theological matters:

“And here I have an opportunity of recognizing once for all that higher view of approaching the subject of these Discourses, which, after this formal recognition, I mean to dispense with. Ecclesiastical authority, not argument, is the supreme rule and the appropriate guide for Catholics in matters of religion.” (26)

But in reality the argument of ‘Idea’ is informed in depth by a theological vision. How could it be otherwise, since he is advocating “a university, of which Catholicity is the fundamental principle”? (27) This idea is conflated with the ideals of liberal education, but they are two distinct strands in the argument, implying distinct sources of illumination; the liberal principles are established by ordinary human wisdom, but the distinctively Catholic claim requires the biblical vision of the human mind and the doctrine of original sin. The conflation is perhaps facilitated by the two senses of “Catholicity”; in its meaning of “universality” it can well be argued to belong to the essence of a university; even the claim that theology is a branch of knowledge might be argued non-theologically; but when the theology in question is identified with Catholic teaching we are in the presence of a distinctly theological claim. In addition, Newman's empirical survey of educational theory and practice stumbles on religious matters again and again. Adopting the papal conviction that education can be “conducted, here and now, on a theological principle" Newman promises to “insist on the high theological view of a University” (ib.). He can scarcely abstract from this theological vantage-point in the course of the work. His claim to pursue a non-theological reflection means only that the theological elements in his vision will be verified by empirical observation. It is true that direct appeal to authority, especially papal, is avoided in the work. Newman's confusing statements about the status of his discourse reflect perhaps an instinctive resistance to any disjoining of university education from religious allegiance.

THE OBJECTIVITY OF THEOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE

Newman's insistence, in Discourse II, that theology should be taught in any university worthy of the name is argued on the basis of the idea of a university as a place of universal knowledge. He has been accused of a hankering after the medieval university in which theology was the recognized queen of the sciences. But in reality his interest is less in securing a dominant place for theology than in asserting the reality of theological knowledge. What gives the edge to his thought here is not a utopian cultural ideal but an awareness of the embattled state of religious knowledge in a secularized society. The exclusion of theology from university curricula is based on the assumption that “the province of Religion is very barren of real knowledge” (34) and that “little or nothing is known about the supreme Being” (35). Paradoxically, a pious society can be equally sceptical of theological knowledge, viewing religion as a matter of the heart rather than the head. Thus theology was excluded by charter from Irish universities, including University College, Dublin, with catastrophic results only now becoming fully apparent. Had Newman's voice been heeded, Irish Catholicism might have been a major cultural and intellectual force.

Newman is concerned less with intellectual culture than with the authenticity of faith as he argues that there is objective knowledge of God:

“Is not the being of a God reported to us by testimony, handed down by history, inferred by an inductive process, brought home to us by metaphysical necessity, urged on us by the suggestions of our conscience? It is a truth in the natural order, as well as in the supernatural... Admit a God, and you introduce among the subjects of your knowledge, a fact encompassing, closing in upon, absorbing, every other fact conceivable.” (38)

The argument so far is on general rational grounds: “I have been simply speaking of Natural Theology; my argument of course is stronger when I go on to Revelation” (ib.). His doggedly objective account of revealed knowledge savours of fundamentalist literalism: “That the Earth is to be burned by fire, is, if true, as large a fact as that huge monsters once played amid its depths; that Antichrist is to come, is as categorical a heading to a chapter of history, as that Nero or Julian was Emperor of Rome” (39). This can still be seen as a philosophical argument for the teaching of theology, rather than direct theological apologetics.

The alternative to such objective knowledge is the reduction of religious truth to a matter of feeling, poorly defended against the human proclivity to forget God altogether. The 1852 government document he quotes shows how entrenched an expressivist conception of religious truth had become: “the essential idea of all religious Education will consist in the direct cultivation of the feelings” (43). To show what a robust religious knowledge consists of, he puts forward a precise, doctrinal account of the nature of God. Here he seems to step into the realm of a properly theological discourse:

“According to the teaching of Monotheism, God is an Individual, Self-dependent, All-perfect, Unchangeable Being; intelligent, living, personal, and present; almighty, all-seeing, all-remembering; between whom and His creatures there is an infinite gulf;... who will judge every one of us, sooner or later, according to that Law of right and wrong which He has written in our hearts.” (46)

Against rationalist deism, he stresses the distinct, personal nature of the biblical God; against the temptation to retreat into a cocoon of fideism, he affirms that our knowledge of this God is objective and that it can be expounded in clear and precise discursive articulation. Such doctrine is unpalatable to the modern secular intellect:

“In a state of society such as ours, in which authority, prescription, tradition, habit, moral instinct, and the divine influences go for nothing,... I cannot take it for granted... that the spirit of the age means by the Supreme Being what Catholics mean… Nothing is easier than to use the word, and mean nothing by it... The Almighty is something infinitely different from a principle, or a centre of action, or a quality, or a generalization of phenomena. If, then, by the word, you do but mean a Being who keeps the world in order..., who acts towards us but only through what are called laws of Nature, who is more certain not to act at all than to act independent of those laws...; such a God it is not difficult for any one to conceive - not difficult for any one to endure.” (46-7)

This is the most impassioned rhetoric we have met so far, and it is a distinctly theological onslaught on the world’s forgetfulness of God.

Proceeding from an objective and precise idea of who and what God is, Newman sketches a view of human existence which is equally firm and clear; the world's forgetfulness of God is sighted not in a globalizing jeremiad but in sharp empirical diagnosis. He does not tackle straightforward atheism, but the subtle accommodations whereby society continues to use the term “God” while voiding it of any content. He traces the theological disease of his society back to the Enlightenment scepticism of Hume: “When I find Religious Education treated as the cultivation of sentiment, and Religious Belief as the accidental hue or posture of the mind, I am reluctantly but forcibly reminded of a very unpleasant page of Metaphysics, viz., of the relations between God and Nature insinuated by such philosophers as Hume” (49). For Hume this imperfect cosmos does not testify to a Creator of “superlative intelligence and benevolence”: “you have no ground to ascribe to him any qualities, but what you see he has actually exerted and displayed in his productions. Let your Gods, therefore, O philosophers, be suited lo the present appearances of nature” (Hume, 137-8). Newman would regard as a surrender to Hume a contemporary theologian’s suggestion that talk of “God” is a poetic way of evoking a “relatively impersonal cosmic evolutionary-historical process”, “the cosmic serendipitous activity active in the evolutionary-historical trajectory toward humanization”, “the ‘personality producing activities’ going on within the universe” (Kaufman, 337, 352. 356). Some claim that Newman’s dogmatic principle is disregarded by all in the modern world and that his greatness, like Nietzsche’s or Lenin's, lies merely in his stubborn protest against the liberalism triumphant in modern culture (see Pattison). That seems a hasty conclusion. Newman is often a defender of lost causes, but his insistence on the mind's capacity to know and state truths, particularly religious truths, remains of immense contemporary import.

THE RELEVANCE OF THEOLOGY TO THE OTHER SCIENCES

At the start of Discourse III Newman sketches the mental attitude of academics startled at the clamour “for what they have been so little accustomed to place in the category of knowledge as Religion” (51). They fall back on a separation of religious and secular knowledge and propose that theology “should remain excluded from the public schools, but that it should be permitted in private” (52). Again Newman tackles this issue in terms of first principles:

“All knowledge forms one whole, because its subject-matter is one; for the universe in its length and breadth is so intimately knit together, that we cannot separate off portion from portion, and operation from operation, except by a mental abstraction; and then again, as to its Creator,... He has so implicated Himself with it, and taken it into His very bosom, by His presence in it, His providence over it, His impressions upon it, and His influences through it, that we cannot truly or fully contemplate it without in some main aspects contemplating Him.” (57)

The play of prepositions here (in, over, upon, through) grandly echoes Pauline doxologies (Rom 11.36, I Cor 8.6, Col 1.16). This way of viewing the relation of God and the cosmos, proceeding boldly from God down rather than from the cosmos toward the transcendent, presupposes a metaphysical overview of the relation of God to world and also some simple anthropomorphic images of creation. If the inattention of science to divine presence, providence, impressions and influences mutilates the sum of knowledge, it is not as if scientific realities were of the same order of fact as those with which theology deals, as is suggested by the literalist résumés of biblical “facts” noted earlier and by the bold definition of theology as “the Science of God” (65). Rather, a different kind of thinking is required to register these transcendent realities, be it metaphysics or a thinking that overcomes metaphysics by contemplative attention to “the worlding of world” (Heidegger).

“Behind the veil of the visible universe, there is an invisible, intelligent Being, acting on and through it, as and when He will” (ib.). This way of evoking the presence of God is again a questionable metaphysical overview, a Platonist schema, and much less convincing than Newman's allusions to the presence of God in inward experience. The interaction between God and cosmos needs to be figured in subtler terms. With the same eloquence as he devoted to the identity of the biblical God, Newman proclaims the divine presence in creation:

“The most insignificant or unsightly insect is from Him, and good in its kind... His are the tribes and families of birds, their graceful forms, their wild gestures, and their passionate cries... Anticipations or reminiscences of His glory haunt the mind of the self-sufficient sage, and of the pagan devotee; His writing is upon the wall, whether of the Indian fane, or of the porticoes of Greece. He introduces Himself, He all but concurs... in the issues of unbelief, superstition, and false worship.” (67-8)

The vision here is patristic, reminiscent above all of Clement of Alexandria. How, precisely, does the invisible divine presence affect the empirical study of the phenomena listed, from insects to the higher products of civilization? Is the theology of monotheism as immediately pertinent to the other sciences as Newman claims?

“If there be a science anywhere, which at least could claim not to be ignored, but to be entertained, and either distinctly accepted or distinctly reprobated, or rather, which cannot be passed over in a scheme of universal instruction, without involving positive denial of its truth, it is this ancient, this far-spreading philosophy.” (70)

Today, writing in the same vein, one might make a broader claim: not the single strand of monotheistic doctrine, but the study of religion in general, and of the problems of its truth and falsity, might be put forward as essential to a complete system of knowledge; biblical monotheism would appear as but one branch of religious vision. It is in the opposite direction that Newman moves, passing from a defence of the necessity of natural theology to a plea that “that system of revealed facts and principles which constitutes the Catholic Faith, which goes so far beyond nature” (71) should also be a part of university education. Religious truth, for Newman, is exhaustively resumed in the Catholic faith, and this leaves little room for a broader questioning of the relations between the world of the sciences and the domain of transcendence.

Discourse IV deals with the influence of other disciplines on theology. Newman again begins with a sketch of a prejudice: the modern conviction that science has put religion on the defensive, that “religious men would not thus be jealous and alarmed about Science, did they not feel instinctively, though they may not recognize it, that knowledge is their born enemy, and that its progress, if it is not arrested, will be certain to destroy all that they hold venerable and dear” (72). Newman insists on the truths that theology can teach to science, again in a literalist vein: “In the science of history, the preservation of our race in Noah's ark is an historical fact, which history never would arrive at without Revelation; and, in the province of physiology and moral philosophy, our race's progress and perfectibility is a dream, because Revelation contradicts it, whatever may be plausibly argued on its behalf by scientific inquirers” (73). The second claim here draws on the doctrine of original sin to thwart scientific ideals of human progress. If theological knowledge is excluded, the other sciences will fill the gap, stretching beyond their proper bounds. This is a valuable warning in an age in which science pretends to explain all and in which scientists pontificate on theological and philosophical subjects (God, creation, free will) with no knowledge of the historical debates thereon. But Newman seems to have a too cautious and pessimistic attitude toward the autonomous development of the sciences. The same is true of the autonomy of art:

“When Painting, for example, grows into the fulness of its function as a simply imitative art, it at once ceases to be dependent on the Church. It has an end of its own, and that of earth: Nature is its pattern, and the object it pursues is the beauty of Nature, even till it becomes an ideal beauty, but a natural beauty still. It cannot imitate that beauty of Angels and Saints which it has never seen.” (78)

A stark disjunction between natural and supernatural casts the arts and sciences as “merely natural” and places them far beneath the supernatural knowledge of faith and “the beauty of holiness”. For all the lively evocations of the physical world in this work, its substance is thinly grasped, for Newman superimposes on all scientific or literary perspectives the overriding higher perspective of theology, forbidding any approach to the world that breaks with the biblical framework.

As he calls for theology, he calls for religious art as an antidote to all-absorbing secularism. In its absence European art has been “a creation indeed of high genius, of intense , dazzling, and soul-absorbing beauty, in which, however, there was nothing on the other hand which did not directly or indirectly minister to corrupt nature and the powers of darkness” (ib.). The Church attempts to “sanctify to a heavenly purpose sciences as sublime and as divine [the Fine Arts] as any which are cultivated by fallen man” (81). In contrast, those who make a secular science the measure of all things unconsciously fall into unbelief and “scatter infidel principles under the garb and colour of Christianity” (ib.). Such academics sometimes run into trouble with the guardians of religious truth, as Sir William Lawrence did when one of his medical treatises seemed to deny the immortality of the soul: “Before he knows where he is, a cry is raised on all sides of him; and so little does he know what we may call the lie of the land, that his attempts at apology perhaps only make matters worse. In other words, an exclusive line of study has led him, whether he will or not, to run counter to the principles of Religion” (82). Newman has mapped the frontiers between religion and irreligion in distinct, unambiguous terms. They leave little room for a questioning of religion by scientific discovery. Theology is in all cases the highest tribunal: “Political Economy must not be allowed to give judgment in its own favour, but must come before a higher tribunal”; thus the economist oversteps the mark when he takes it on himself to say: “the endeavour to accumulate the means of future subsistence and enjoyrnent, is, to the mass of mankind, the great source of moral improvement” (87). This is not a scientific statement but a private opinion: “it is Private Judgment that infects every science which it touches with a hostility to Theology, a hostility which properly attaches to no science in itself whatever” (92).

Unwittingly, some of Newman's own remarks illustrate how theology has functioned as an obstacle to scientific insight, thus partly justifying the hostility he deplores. However, nowhere in ‘Idea’ does he repeat the implausible claims he made at the age of twenty-five:

“To be dispassionate and cautious, to be fair in discussion, to give each phenomenon which nature successively presents its due weight, candidly to admit those which militate against our own theory, to be willing to be ignorant for a time, to submit to difficulties, and patiently and meekly proceed, waiting for further light, is a ternper (whether difficult or not at this day) little known to the heathen world; yet it is the only temper in which we can hope to become interpreters of nature, and it is the very temper which Christianity sets forth as the perfection of our moral character.”(US, 9-10)

The sermon goes on to explain the tensions between science and Christianity by a single cause: “There is much very revolting to the minds of many, much that is contrary to their ideas of harmony and order... in the doctrine that man is disgraced and degraded from his natural and original rank; that he has, by sinning, introduced a blemish into the work of God” (13); an explicit reference (15) reveals that these thoughts are a riposte to Gibbon, who along with Hume plays a role as Newman's sparring-partner comparable to that of Celsus, Porphyry or Julian in early Christian apologetics. The later works, such as ‘Idea’, the ‘Apologia’ and the ‘Grammar of Assent’, may reveal between the lines an informed awareness that the conflicts between the claims of religious certitude and those of inquiring intellect, even within the sphere of theology itself, require a more complex interpretation.

KNOWLEDGE ITS OWN END

Discourse V raises a new question: what is the use of the knowledge and of the philosophic habit of mind which are acquired in a liberal education? One might expect Newman, from all that has gone before, to insist that all knowledge is to be subordinated to a religious goal, and that the autonomy of secular knowledge is an expression of a distorted perspective and of the sinful pride caused by original sin. While defending the freedom of the University against utilitarian calculation, will he fall for a higher religious utilitarianism, the idea that knowledge is of value only as it serves divine truth?

But here Newman springs a delightful surprise, arguing that liberal knowledge “has a very tangible, real, and sufficient end, though the end cannot be divided from that knowledge itself. Knowledge is capable of being its own end. Such is the constifution of the human mind, that any kind of knowledge, it if be really such, is its own reward” (97). He affirms the autonomy of knowledge:

“That alone is liberal knowledge, which stands on its own pretensions, which is independent of sequel, expects no complement, refuses to be informed (as it is called) by any end, or absorbed into any art, in order duly to present itself to our contemplation.” (101)

Some readers see this as the humanist's victory over the theologian; a more careful reading, however, reveals that this defence of knowledge as its own end is an integral part of a comprehensive theological vision. There is, indeed, a tension between Newman's mistrust of secular culture and his glorying in knowledge as its own end, but the tension itself is a theological one. It reflects the tension between the original goodness of human nature and the treacherous features of its fallen condition, and the impotence of that natural goodness to raise itself to God until God stoop down to elevate it, through the Atonement and the working of grace. The tension between celebrating knowledge and questioning its status, between affirming the Enlightenment and marking its bounds, reflects the uneasy and paradoxical nature of human existence as descried by the doctrine of original sin, which does not allow the mind to rest in any simple affirmation of human goodness or any simple condemnation of human nature as corrupt.

A more “Augustinian” theologian might have resolved the tension by toning down the Aristotelian emphasis on knowledge as its own end. Newman is closer to Aquinas and the Greek Fathers in seeing the life of the mind, not only in its rarefied higher reaches but in its entire length and breadth, as an image of the divine life. If it were not an end in itself, it could not be such an image. The Greek spirit lives on in Christianity in the topos of the superiority of contemplation to action, inherited from Plotinus, who influenced Augustine so deeply, and still more from Aristotle's ‘Nicomachean Ethics’, the basis of Aquinas's moral philosophy. But in practice the divine image in human beings is obscured by sin: that is the other pole of the tension. Thus Newman can go further than any secular humanist in glorifying knowledge, seeing it as a feast or liturgy that needs no further justification, while at the same time he warns against the distortions of pride or superficiality that menace its health and integrity.

The idea that liberal knowledge has as its end “to make men better" Newman “will not for an instant allow”. “It is as real a mistake to burden it with virtue or religion as with the mechanical arts... Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justice of view faith” (110). The final clauses here imply a critique of intellectualist Christianity, the idea that knowledge can do the work of conscience, humility and faith, that it can curb the effects of original sin. Knowledge is a natural, not a supernatural good, the quality of the gentleman not of the Christian. Here the sharp natural/supernatural distinction seems to bring us back within the bourne of a restrictive Augustinianism. At such moments the refined tension of Newman's vision threatens to slip into a dualism in which knowledge and the virtues of a gentleman are seen as merely worldly goods, to be transcended in the practice of faith: “they are no guarantee for sanctity or even for conscientiousness, they may attach to the man of the world, to the profligate, to the heartless, - pleasant, alas, and attractive as he shows when decked out in them” (110). This cautious assessment of “nature” has less to do with educational theory than with the underlying religious problematic which is Newman's chief preoccupation. He dramatizes the powerlessness of knowledge against the ravages of original sin:

“Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man.”(111)

Human knowledge here is starkly opposed to divine grace, with little recognition that grace could work through human knowledge and human reason, or that the opening of the mind to truth is already a grace-filled event. The Thomistic doctrine, retrieved by Henri de Lubac, that the mind has a natural desire for its supernatural end, the vision of God, could give to the mind's dynamic desire for knowledge, in its transcendent reach, a more positive role in the economy of salvation than Newman allows.

Discourse VI, on intellectual culture, sees the university as an institution producing health of mind as a hospital produces health of body, and which on that score “has been found worth the notice, the appropriation of the Catholic Church” (115). Here again an interplay of natural and supernatural is alluded to. Knowledge can affect one for ill as in the following Fall scenario in four stages: temptation, consent, sinful action, and resulting corruption of mind (note the allusions to the narrative of the Fall in Genesis 3):

“The first time the mind comes across the arguments and speculations of unbelievers, and feels what a novel light they cast upon what it has hitherto accounted sacred; and still more, if it gives in to them and embraces them, and throws off as so much prejudice what it has hitherto held, and, as if waking from a dream, begins to realize to its imagination that there is now no such thing as law and the transgression of law, that sin is a phantom, and punishment a bugbear, that it is free to sin, free to enjoy the world and the flesh; and still further, when it does enjoy them, and reflects that it may think and hold just what it will, that ‘the world is all before it where to choose’, and what system to build up as its private persuasion; when this torrent of wilful thoughts rushes over it and inundates it, who will deny that the fruit of the tree of knowledge, or what the mind takes for knowledge, has made it one of the gods, with a sense of expansion and elevation - an intoxication in reality, still, so far as the subjective state of the mind goes, an illumination? Hence the fanaticism of individuals or nations, who suddenly cast off their Maker. Their eyes are opened…”(119)

The scenario is more rudimentary in the 1841 sermon which Newman is rewriting in these pages:

“When a person for the first time hears the arguments and speculations of unbelievers, and feels what a very novel light they cast upon what he has hitherto accounted most sacred, it cannot be denied, that, unless he is shocked and closes his ears and heart to them, he will have a sense of expansion and elevation... Sin brings with it its own enlargement of mind, which Eve was tempted to covet, and of which she made proof.” (US, 284)

But religion produces in the converted a far superior form of mental enlargement:

“It is often remarked of uneducated persons, who have hitherto thought little of the unseen world, that, on their turning to God, looking into themselves, regulating their hearts, reforming their conduct, and meditating on death and judgment, heaven and hell, they seem to become, in point of intellect, different beings from what they were. Before, they took things as they came, and thought no more of one thing than another. But now every event has a meaning; they have their own estimate of whatever happens to them; they are mindful of times and seasons, and compare the present with the past; and the world, no longer dull, monotonous, unprofitable, and hopeless, is a various and complicated drama, with parts and an object, and an awful moral.” (120).

Religion thus augments the power of synthesis in which mental cultivation consists and prevents us from being spectators of a random succession of experiences, who “see the tapestry of human life, as it were on the wrong side, and it tells no story” (122). Conversely, the intellect “which has learned to leaven the dense mass of fact and events with the elastic force of reason” (123) comes a little nearer to the comprehensiveness of religious vision. Yet as Newman portrays the ideal of the cultivated intellect in a paragraph of breath-taking eloquence, he sprinkles the words “nature” and “almost, to indicate that humanity is to aspire to something higher, beyond nature:

“It is almost prophetic from its knowledge of history; it is almost heart-searching from its knowledge of human nature; it has almost supernatural charity from its freedom from littleness and prejudice; it has almost the repose of faith, because nothing can startle it. (124)

What, one wonders, can religion add to this mental scope and enlightenment? The answer will come in the time-honoured Augustinian tones: humility, obedience, charity, trust in God alone. Here Newman preaches these virtues of the heart by suggesting their absence even as he provides an overwhelmingly attractive account of human nature without them. Again, his view of intellectual cultivation as a kind of medicinal treatment for the fallen intellect, preservative against intellectual pride, Iacks a positive vision of the dynamism of the intellect as intrinsically God-oriented.

Discourse VII argues for a wide, non-specialist approach to education. We can set this entirely non-theological discourse against the theological background. Newman associates the unfallen intellect with intuitive knowledge: “The intellect in its present state, with exceptions which need not here be specified, does not discern truth intuitively, or as a whole” (134). This chimes with a romantic conception of knowledge as intuitive, unitive, and totalizing, found in Schelling as Englished by Coleridge. The mind needs scientific training to find its way to truth by the complex discursive procedures now necessary. Utilitarian stress on narrow specialization augments the marks of original sin. Newman deplores Locke’s question, “what other measure is there of dignity in intellectual labour but usefulness” (141), and he replies: “if a healthv bodv is a good in itself, why is not a healthy intellect?”(142). Education is a medicine for the mind, curing its aboriginal deformities. A more basic reply is that “the good is always useful” (143-4).

THE RELIGION OF REASON

Discourse Vlll bringsusbacktoreligion: “The educated mind may be said to be in a certain sense religious; that is, it has what may be considered a religion of its own, independent of Catholicism, partly co-operating with it, partly thwarting it (157). The relations between this religion of reason and Catholicism are seen as founded in the ontological interplay between nature and grace. As Newman dwells on this vision he plunges into explicitly theological language:

“Divine grace, to use the language of Theology, does not by its presence supersede nature; nor is nature at once brought into simple concurrence and coalition with grace. Nature pursues its course, now coincident with that of grace, now parallel to it, now across, now divergent, now counter, in proportion to its own imperfection, and to the attraction and influence that grace exerts over it.” (158)

Few preachers have used this theological shorthand so effectively to evoke dramatic patterns in human experience. Since Newman mapped his own life in terms of nature and grace, these terms came to acquire on his tongue the dense associations of lived experience.

Yet on this point contemporary theologians would see a need to query the metaphysical structures of Newman’s thinking. He speaks of nature and grace as monolithic, univocal entities, the fundamental parameters in terms of which all of human existence is to be interpreted. He upholds the idea of a universal moral revelation, writing in 1830: “We know of not time of country in which human Reason _was_ unaided” (US, 18). Though his attention to the phenomena may have convinced him that neither nature nor grace are ever given in a pure form, he believes nonetheless in their distinct identities and their usefulness as guides to observation and interpretation of human affairs. Yet both words, in their theological usage, are abstractions intended to explain the diversity of the phenomena, and it may be that their usefulness is greatly diminished when the postulate of an original pure human nature, whether in Eden or in the divine mind, is replaced with the idea of humanity as an ongoing evolutionary project. The concrete, positive experiences that prompt religious people to use the word “grace” are of an illimitable variety, and new ways of experiencing “grace” are invented in each culture. An older theology might have spoken of the achievements of Mozart or Goethe as merely natural; today, we are readier to see grace at work in all human achievements, and we even use “grace” to describe the wonder of existing, of being alive. “Grace” has come to mean the gratuity underlying everything that is given, so that a sharp distinction between the order of nature and the order of grace becomes increasingly impracticable. Newman derives occasions for great eloquence from the dialectic of nature and grace, and its unusability today is certainly an impoverishment of homiletic and theological rhetoric.

“Right Reason, that is, Reason rightly exercised, leads the mind to the Catholic Faith”, but in practice reason “is far from taking so straight and satisfactory a direction” (ib.). The basic cause of this deviation is pride: “It considers itself from first to last independent and supreme” (ib.). As he relates the “religion of reason” or the “religion of civilization” to “those principles, doctrines, and rules, which Heaven has given us in the Catholic Church", Newman emphasizes that he is not referring to “the main articles and prominent points of faith, as contained in the Creed” but is “contemplating Catholicism as a system of pastoral instruction and moral duty”:

“I speak of it, for instance, as teaching the ruined state of man; his utter inability to gain Heaven by any thing he can do by himself; the moral certainty of his losing his soul if left to himself; the simple absence of all rights and claims on the part of the creature in the presence of the Creator; the illimitable claims of the Creator on the service of the creature; the imperative and obligatory force of the voice of conscience: and the inconceivable evil of sensuality. I speak of it as teaching, that no one gains Heaven except by the free grace of God, or without a regeneration of nature; that no one can please Him without faith; that the heart is the seat both of sin and of obedience; that charity is the fulfilling of the Law; and that incorporation into the Catholic Church is the ordinary instrument of salvation.”(159)

Reason’s intellectual blindness to revealed doctrines is traced here to its roots in a moral blindness to these practical truths about the state of human nature. The presence of the church as a moral challenge to the self-sufficiency of reason and civilization, not the details of its Creed, is what is here emphasized. Note again that his description of this challenge is laced with doctrinal investments; the phrase “except by the free grace of God, or without a regeneration of nature” combines an anti-Pelagian insistence on the need of grace with a balancing anti-Lutheran stress that righteousness is not imputed only, but implanted. The teaching is put with equal succinctness in 1838: “Saving truth, life, light, and holiness are not of us, though they must be _in_ us”'(PPS V 132):

“As there are those who consider that life, righteousness, and salvation are of us, so there are others who hold that they are not in us; and as there are many who more or less forget that justification is of God, so there are quite as many who more or less forget that justification must be in man if it is to profit him. And it is hard to say which of the two errors is the gteater' (ib., 137)

The prominence of such concerns in a discourse on university education represents a desire to see the Church’s world-view prevail over the emergent secular world-view. Indeed, Christian thinkers have only with great difficulty been able to admit the independence of a serf-legitimating secular reason, aided by the paradoxical ideas of Dietrich Bonhoeffer ('religionless Christianity,” “the world come of age”), and there are still theologians who regard the idea of such autonomy as a heresy or a relapse into paganism (e.g. Milbank 1990). Vatican II supplies a broader platform than was available to Newman for negotiating the Chrurch’s relation to secularity; he makes do instead with a dialectic of nature and grace which his patristic culture preserved from becoming threadbare.

Newman proposes that the medicinal effect of intellectual cultivation can make it an ally of the pastors of the Church in “the first step which they have to take in the conversion of man", namely

“his rescue from that fearful subjection to sense which is his ordinary state. To be able to break through the meshes of that thraldom, and to disentangle and to disengage its ten thousand holds upon the heart, is to bring it, I might almost say, half-way to Heaven. Here, even divine grace, to speak of things according to their appearances, is ordinarily baffled, and retires, without expedient or resource, before this giant fascination... What we need then is some expedient or instrument, which at least will obstruct and stave off the approach of our spiritual enemy... It will be our wisdom to employ nature against itself... a sort of homoeopathic medicine for the disease. Here then I think is the important aid which intellectual cultivation furnishes to us in rescuing the victims of passion and self-will.” (160-1)

Intellectual cultivation can represent nature working hand in hand with grace, even though of itself it does not save: “though it does not raise us above our nature, nor has any tendency to make us pleasing to our Maker, yet is it nothing to substitute what is in itself harmless for what is, to say the least, inexpressibly dangerous?” (161). Newman lingers less on this happy possibility than on the danger that intellectual cultivation “may be from the first nothing more than the substitution of pride for sensuality” (ib.). It gives the mind a disgust at evil in its coarser forms: “This fastidiousness, though arguing no high principle, will generally deter the gentleman from offences 'to which ruder natures, nay, such as have far more of real religion in them, are tempted” (162). But “the radical difference indeed of this mental refinement from genuine religion, in spite of its seeming relationship, is the very cardinal point on which my present discussion turns” (164).

A gentleman's civilized shame is less effective than fear in leading one to God: “when the mind is simply angry with itself and nothing more, surely the true import of the voice of nature and the depth of its intimations have been forgotlen, and a false philosophy has misinterpreted emotions which ought to lead to God” (165). This is “the ordinary sin of the Intellect; conscience tends to become what is called a moral sense; the command of duty is a sort of taste; sin is not an offence against God, but against human nature” (ib.). “This was the quarrel of the ancient heathen with Christianity, that, instead of simply fixing the mind on the fair and the pleasant, it intermingled other ideas with them of a sad and painful nature... they made their own minds their sanctuary, their own ideas their oracle, and conscience in morals was but parallel to genius in art, and wisdom in philosophy” (167). Gibbon's account of the deathbed of the Emperor Julian (a hero of the Enlightenment philosophers) elicits this comment:

“Such, Gentlemen, is the final exhibition of the Religion of Reason: in the insensibility of conscience, in the ignorance of the very idea of sin, in the contemplation of his own moral consistency, in the simple absence of fear, in the cloudless self-confidence, in the serene self-possession, in the cold self-satisfaction, we recognize the mere Philosopher.” (169)

Cutting through the seeming fairness of civilized life, Newman urges the claims of conscience even against poetry: “poets may say any thing, however wicked, with impunity; works of genius may be read without danger or shame, whatever their principles... The splendours of a court, and the charms of good society, wit, imagination, taste, and high breeding, the _prestige_ of rank, and the resources of wealth, are a screen, an instrument, and an apology for vice and irreligion”(173). The sense of seeming is accentuated by the paradox that “from this shallowness of philosophical religion it comes to pass that its disciples seem able to fulfil certain precepts of Christianity more readily and exactly than Christians themselves” (174). “The world is contentr with setting right the surface of things; the Church aims at regenerating the very depths of the heart”(ib.). Subtle analyses show how pride, wearing the guise of modesty, has become the ruling principle of modern civilization.

It is in this negative context that the famous description of the gentleman is introduced. It is entirely ironic: the gentleman is busy avoiding conflict or unpleasantness, ordering the gracious surface of life. “He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd...He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort, he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets every thing for the best” (179). Newman drives home the point that this has nothing to do with deep-rooted Christian charity by modelling his rhetoric here on Paul's panegyric of charity, which “doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil” (I Cor. 13.5).

Discourse IX insists that for the practical realization of the ideal of a Catholic university “a direct and active jurisdiction of the Church over it and in it is necessary, lest it should become the rival of the Church with the community at large in those theological matters which to the Church are exclusively committed, - acting as the representative of the intellect, as the Church is the representative of the religious principle” (184). Here Newman is preaching a kind of integralism, of the kind that has wreaked such havoc on Catholic theology in recent years. Universities tend to become centres of an intellectualism which rejects “the very principle of dogmatism” (186). Science then leads to the exclusion of Revealed Truth and literature to its corruption (187). One reason for the tension between science and faith is that the Church is not concerned with the structure of the universe but is a remedial dispensation, set up by God, to meet “the introduction of moral evil into the world” (192) which happened after the creation of heaven and earth. Literature presents “the natural man” who “is sure to sin, and his literature will be the expression of his sin” (194). Science “is dangerous, because it necessarily ignores the idea of moral evil; but Literature is open to the more grievous imputation of recognizing and understanding it too well” (195). Here again the Church has a remedial role:

“Literature does not argue, but declaims and insinuates; it is multiform and versatile: it persuades instead of convincing, it seduces, it carries captive…  Is it wonderful that with an agent like this the Church should claim to deal with a vigour corresponding to its restlessness, to interfere in its proceedings with a higher hand, and to wield an authority in the choice of its studies and of its books which would be tyrannical, if reason and fact were the only instruments of its conclusions?” (199)

Today, Catholics generally are slow to adopt this censorious attitude to literature, but it is an equally one-sided solution to acclaim pagan and atheistic writers as intrinsically on the side of spirit. We need to recover the contradiction between the world-view of Christianity and that vehiculated by Joyce, Yeats, or Kafka, in order to pursue a critical and intelligent dialogue with these writers. The archons of political correctness have shown that sin and error are intrinsic to literature. Theology, even as it gratefully learns from literature, must be no less discriminating in its judgments on what poets and novelists are actually teaching. “The poets lie too much” (Nietzsche).

If Newman does not write as a theologian, but in a broader philosophical arena, it is because he is taking up the Church's pastoral combat against the pride of the civilized intellect. That intellect is recognized as an ally against coarser evils, but as likely to fall into the subtlest sin, the pride which neglects the reality of God and the necessity of grace. The spectacle of a churchman stepping forth as a gladiator into the arena of secular culture, and daring to view the institutions of modern learning from the vantage point of fundamental Christian teaching about God, sin, and grace, might easily have been a ridiculous one. Newman's triumph is that his performance never falters in dignity, because his critique of modern education is never extrinsic, but is rooted in sympathy for its passion for knowledge and its standards of refinement, to which his own matchless prose pays tribute. If there is a shadow to his triumph, it is that the religious core of his vision has been but dimly apprehended and that his work has been received among the “great books” as a simple celebration of the values of secular liberal education.

REFERENCES

Unless otherwise indicated, Newman is quoted from the uniform edition published by Longmans, Green and Co.

Idea= The Idea of a University, ed. I. T. Ker. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.

Apol. = Apologia pro Vita Sua. New York: Doubleday.

Diff. = Difficulties of Anglicans.

Disc. = Discourses addressed to Mixed Congregations.

Essays = Essays Critical and Historical

GA = An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent.

Just. = Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification.

LD = The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman. Ed. C. S. Dessain et al. London; Oxford, 1961-84.

PPS = Parochial and Plain Sermons.

US = University Sermons

Barth, K. (1953). Kirchliche Dogmatik lV/1. Zurich.
Beatrice, P. F. (1978). Tradux Peccati. Milan.
Bellinger, G.(1987). Der Catechismus Romanus und die Reformation. Hildesheim.
Browne, E. H. (1881). An Exposition of the Thirry-Nine Articles. New York.
Hume, D. (1975). Enquiries concerning Human Understanding. Oxford.
Kaufman, G.D. (1993).In Face of Mystery. Harvard UP.
Milbank, J. (1990). Theology and Social Theory. Oxford.
Murray, P. ed. (1991). John Henry Newman, Sermons 1824-43, I. Oxford.
O'Donovan, O. (1986). On the Thirty Nine Articles. Exeter.
Pattison, R. (1991). The Great Dissent. OUP.
Rousseau, J.-J. (1969). Oeuvres complètes, IV. Paris: Pléiade.
Valéry, P. (1957). Oeuvres, I. Paris: Pléiade.
Walsh, D. (1992). “The Challenge of Newman’s Vision of the University”. In: At the Heart of the Real, ed. F. O'Rourke. Dublin, 389-406.
Wu, Laurence C. (1986). Fundamentals of Chinese Philosophy. University Press of America.

from ENGLISH LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE 31, 1994

Language in Luther's Reformation Breakthrough

We can imagine the Christian tradition as a ship sailing out into a wild, uncharted sea. Seeking to orient itself, it looks back to the past, to the great lighthouses erected by the masters of its theological tradition. These are receding, and do not provide all the illumination that is required, but they remain priceless points of reference. After Scripture, Luther’s light is the one that shines brightest, the one that provides the most vibrant contact between tradition and modernity. Roman Catholic thinkers have sensed this in the twentieth century, and have gradually entered into dialogue with the Reformer. The first generation of sympathetic Catholic Luther scholars, led by Joseph Lortz, thought of Luther as one who had missed a good understanding of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose thinking on grace and justification he would have found fully acceptable. A ripe fruit of this entente is Otto Hermann Pesch’s thesis on the theology of justification in Luther and Aquinas (1967). The new appreciation of Luther facilitated the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification accepted by both churches at Augsburg on October 31, 1999. Denounced by critical theologians such as Ingolf Dalferth as not worth the paper it was written on, rejected as a betrayal of the Gospel by many Lutherans (see D. Preus), and having had as yet little impact on the life and thought of the Churches, the Declaration has at least the merit of allowing Catholic preachers and theologians to draw unselfconsciously on the riches of Lutheran thought, even if few have chosen to avail of this.

Dissatisfaction with the apparently bloodless categories of Neo-Thomism opened another Catholic path to Luther in the sixties. The popularity among Catholic philosophers of Heidegger’s call for an ‘overcoming of metaphysics’ brought a new sympathy for Luther’s struggle with scholasticism and for the counter-metaphysical theologians in the Lutheran tradition, such as Schleiermacher, Ritschl and Harnack. At the height of this movement, in the seventies and eighties, it was not known that Heidegger’s project had been incubated in its very beginning by intensive study of Luther’s writings as well as of Harnack’s History of Dogma, with its thesis that ‘Dogma is a product of the Greek mind on the soil of the Gospel’. This has now been shown in detail by Christian Jaedicke-Sommer (71-142). In a 1920 lecture Heidegger talks of “der Weg zu einer ursprünglichen christlichen – griechentumfreien – Theologie” (the way to an original Christian theology – free of Hellenism) (Gesamtausgabe 59.91). Had Heidegger devoted his talents to theology, he would undoubtedly have pursued this idea. That is why, as he said once or twice, the notion of Being – the quintessentially Greek concern to which Heidegger devoted his entire work – would not have figured in such a theology at all.

But the platform on which Luther and Roman Catholicism have most warmly met is neither the doctrine of justification nor the critique of metaphysical theology, both of which still remain primarily Protestant specialties. Rather it is the Catholic rediscovery of the theological centrality of the Word of God, culminating in Vatican II, with its Constitution Dei Verbum, that has most brought Luther near. If Tridentine Catholicism insisted overwhelmingly on the sacraments as channels of grace and ignored the role of the preached word (see Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik I/1.65-71), the Catholic Church today is much more a Church of the word. We may discern an indirect influence of Luther in the prominence of the Word in the theologies of Balthasar, Rahner, Schillebeeckx and many others of the Vatican II years. It was not the ‘Luther renaissance’ of the early twentieth century that thrust this theme to the forefront of awareness, but the Dialectical Theology of Karl Barth, Emil Brunner and Rudolf Bultmann. Though Barth was an heir of Calvin rather than Luther, his Dogmatics is founded on the Word of God, the theme of its first two massive volumes, Die Lehre vom Wort Gottes (1932 and 1938), which quote Luther, often at length, more than two hundred times. Barth was very well received in Catholic circles, in major studies by Henri Bouillard, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Hans Küng, and in the acclaim of Pius XII. It was largely under Barth’s influence, too, that Luther scholars such as Eugen Bizer, Gerhard Ebeling and Ernst Wolf had begun to stress the importance of the ‘word-event’ in Luther’s thought and especially in his ‘reformation breakthrough’.

In the present essay, I shall attempt to sharpen my understanding of Luther’s key contribution to theology by focusing on its linguistic aspect, its discovery of a new relation to the scriptural word. Faced with the massive bulk of Luther’s writings and the sophistication and complexity of German Luther-research (perhaps the most fascinating sub-discipline in historical theology), I cannot claim scholarly mastery of the sources or the debates. Instead I offer a free meditation on aspects of Luther’s word-theology that can guide and challenge faith today.

DATING THE REFORMATION BREAKTHROUGH

Many scholars now distinguish between Luther’s reformational turn (reformatorische Wende), the process by which Luther worked out his original position in the writings of 1513 to 1518, and his reformation breakthrough (reformatorisches Durchbruch), the event, recalled in his 1545 preface to his Latin works, in which his theological vision definitively crystallized, and which can plausibly be dated to February-March 1518. A feature of this crystallization that has been given prominence by such scholars as Eugen Bizer, Matthias Kroeger and Oswald Bayer is the role of language.

Luther had been sensitive to language, and above all to the particularity of scriptural language, from the start. In his marginal notes on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, penned from 1509 to 1511, we already find him denouncing Aristotle as a ‘rancid philosopher’ (WA 9.43). This was not an innovation; his teachers Bartholomew of Usingen and Jodocus Trutfetter, and the Sentences commentary of Pierre d’Ailly, conveyed a similar sentiment (see Zumkeller, 494). From the start Luther asserts that only God’s word speaks well of God, quoting Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate VII 38: “Non relictus est hominum eloquiis de dei rebus aliis quam dei sermo. Omnia reliqua et arta et conclusa et impedita sunt et obscura” (For human utterance about divine things there are no other words than God’s word; all else is straitened, closed in, encumbered and obscure) (WA 9.29). The theologian must adapt his speech to the words of Scripture, and not vice versa: “linguam illis aptare et non econtra” (WA 9.84; see Metzger, 39-47). Luther begins an early sermon on John 3.16 with the remark: “Mira est emphasis in istis verbis et proprietas, sicut est mos Spiritus sancti. Nam non est locutor ullus, qui tantam in sermone proprietatem et energiam habeat sicut ipse” (There is a wonderful force and aptness in these words, as is the custom of the Holy Spirit; for there is no speaker having such propriety and energy in speech as he) (WA 4.595). Clarity and force are the qualities Luther admires in Scripture and emulates, from the start, in his own speech. But in the reformation breakthrough his relation to the biblical word takes on a new and more concrete character, one that entails an overcoming of traditional metaphysical conceptions of the nature of language itself.

Luther now hears the biblical word, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ (Mk 2.5), as bringing a certitude that he had previously missed. From 1515 he had stressed that ‘the righteousness of God’ (Rom. 1.17) was a gift to be received in faith, and that no merit or effort of human beings could secure it. But his thinking on this doctrine remained trammelled by residual philosophical habits of thought from his Augustinian and scholastic background, and the gracious gift of justification was overshadowed by the sinner’s uncertainty as to whether he had actually received it. Assurance of salvation had still to be earned by spiritual acrobatics, by the practice of deep humility, self-abasement and self-condemnation. The practice of resignatio in infernum, resigning oneself to damnation if it be God’s will, derived from German mysticism, sounds like a kind of moral blackmail: “Verumtamen sicut seipsos ita pure conformant voluntati Dei, sic est impossibile ut in inferno maneant. Quia impossibile est, ut extra Deum maneat, qui in voluntatem Dei sese penitus proiecit” (Since they conform so purely to the will of God, it is impossible that they remain in hell, for it is impossible that one who has entirely cast himself on the will of God should remain outside God) (WA 56.391).

The righteousness conferred in this first apprehension of justification as a free gift was only a righteousness in spe, not one that could be confidently appropriated here and now. Luther cleared the simul iustus et peccator of the suspicion of contradiction by pointing out that in Aristotle “opposita non possunt simul esse eodem respectu” (opposites cannot exist at the same time in the same respect) (WA 39/1,89,19). We are sinners and righteous in different respects. In the early writings we are sinners re vera, righteous ex promissione Dei certa (WA 56.272,17-18), an unfortunate explanation, which makes it seem that God’s promise is vainly struggling against the reality of our sinfulness. The iustus in this early understanding of simul iustus et peccator is almost a mere ideal, or a fiction, compared with the depressing weight of sin. Later, Luther will insist that we are righteous in very truth, when we embrace Christ in faith, sinners only “quatenus respicio ad me et ad meum peccatum” (insofar as I look to myself and my sin) (WA 39/1.508,5-6; see Dieter, 305-7). The struggle between sin and righteousness is equally dramatic early and late – for the simul is no peaceful cohabitation, no complacent ability to live with contradictions. But the later language makes clear that in justifying us Christ has definitely won the struggle, and that we cling to him not in hope of a future justification but as claiming in the present the justification he has granted. From a Liberation Theology standpoint, one might solicit Luther’s teaching as follows, giving it a less individualistic cast: Insofar as we are trapped in unjust social structures, we are sinners, however ‘blameless’ our personal lives (as Paul Surlis suggested to me); but insofar as we cooperate, as a community, with the divine will that overcomes these structures of violence and injustice, we are a holy people bringing the Kingdom to birth.

With the 1518 breakthrough, the event of justification is seen primarily as a concrete gracious word of promise, addressed to the sinner here and now, and taken to heart in joyful trust. The righteousness of God, the ‘passive’ righteousness whereby a merciful God justifies us by faith, was identified as the core of the Gospel in the Romans commentary: “revelari per evangelium iustitiam Dei, scilicet passivam, qua nos Deus misericors iustificat per fidem” (WA 54.186). But only when heard as a message of complete assurance, in the word of absolution, is this revelation fully grasped; this is the discovery to which Luther refers in his 1545 retrospect as the opening of the gates of Paradise. The gloomy atmosphere of the earlier writings is now dispelled. The invigorating impact of the rediscovery of the Gospel as glad tidings can be felt in the writings that he hurled forth with such confidence in 1518-21.

Kroeger sees the first emergence of the new conception in the exegesis of Hebrews 5.1 in October 1517. Bayer, who dates the passage to early spring 1518, independently reached the same conclusion (Bayer, 14). Martin Brecht, in his persuasive and influential essay ‘Iustititia Dei’ and in his biography of Luther, has clarified the respects in which the early writings are not fully reformational. He finds in them the masked signs of the malaise that Luther mentions in the 1545 preface, a malaise that led him to hate divine justice, which he imagined as punitive, rather than as the gift of righteousness conferred on sinners in Christ: “non amabam, imo odiebam iustum et punientem peccatores Deum, tacitaque si non blasphemia, certe ingenti murmuratione indignabar Deo” (I did not love, indeed I hated, a just God punishing sinners, and silently I protested against God, if not in blasphemy, certainly in a murmur of intense discontent) (WA 54.185). The idea that fully emerged in 1518 had been brewing in the early writings. What brought it into definitive focus was the realization that the Gospel is not a doctrine to be appropriated by exercises in spiritual zeal such as the resignatio in infernum, but a word of absolution to be heard in faith. Imputed righteousness is not something one must struggle to be worthy of, but is effectively granted when one hears and believes the word of forgiveness. One cannot doubt of one’s justification, indeed it would be sinful to do so, for the authority of Christ speaking the word of forgiveness overrides all doubt. While Brecht tries to define what differentiates the reformational breakthrough from the level of insight reached in the Romans commentary without giving prominence to the word-event, it is hard to formulate the breakthrough without reaching for that category. The reformational ideas are all present in the early writings but they click into place with total conviction only when they are reduced to the powerful simplicity of a word of forgiveness addressed to the sinner and commanding his faith.

Bernhard Lohse and Martin Brecht caution against exaggerating the centrality of the linguistic aspect, and point out that Luther stresses the pure gratuitousness of God’s gift of righteousness to the sinner rather than the verbal medium of this conferral. Lohse (1999:92) points out that the key discovery in Luther’s thinking concerned the ‘righteousness of God’ in Romans 1.17 was developing richly in Luther’s thought for years before the specific discovery of the role of the word. Nonetheless, it does seem that the new clarity and certitude of Luther’s message in 1518 goes hand in hand with a new relationship to the scriptural word, and that this change in Luther’s understanding of language precipitates the crystallization of the Reformation vision expressed in the 1520 manifesto on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. Bayer is not in disaccord with Lohse on the essentials: ‘That in the years 1518 to 1520 the entire skein of traditional motifs is first torn apart, is not an objection to the assumption that the breakthrough in its decisive aspect occurred earlier, but shows the historical and not mechanical way in which the new approach found for itself extensive confirmation’ (Bayer, 225).

THE TORTUOUS PATH TO FREEDOM

The rediscovery of Luther’s pre-Reformation writings early in the twentieth century has unfortunately caused Luther to be seen as a gloomy, tormented theologian, which is what he was before the breakthrough of February 1518. A monastic theology of humility prevailed in the first Psalms commentary and in the Romans commentary. The mark of justification was not certitude but constant worry about one’s own condition, as one trod a middle path between the extremes of presumption and despair. God’s promise of salvation was objectively certain, but it was not subjectively certain that the sinner had actually appropriated it. It was amid pastoral activities that Luther came to his more robust understanding of the Gospel as an effective word of absolution, the Freispruch wherein God transfers the sinner to the realm of righteousness.

Full awareness of the opus proprium of the Gospel is expressed in a sermon of December 21, 1516: “Proprium officium Evangelii est nunciare proprium opus Dei i.e. gratiam, qua pacem et iustitiam et veritatem omnibus gratis dat pater misericordiarum, mitigans omnem iram suam” (WA 1.113,6; text as in Clemen, LW 5.421). Yet the condemnatory work of the Gospel as an alienum sonum (114) is what is most stressed. The good news of forgiveness is to be believed, but it does not claim the believer with the total certainty required to overcome the terror of the condemnation. Luther still seems unaware of the full significance of the contrast of Law and Gospel, and in his exposition of the Seven Penitential Psalms early in 1517 he is still harping on the idea that “wer ym selb ungnedig is, dem ist gott gnedig” (he who is graceless to himself, to him is God graceful) (WA 1.211,12-13). This presents the grace following on the self-abasement as an inherent consequence rather than as the surprising announcement of another, different word (see Bayer, 144-58). In setting up God’s grace as the rightful counterpart of confession of sin, Luther holds at bay the sinner’s dependence on a word of forgiveness spoken freely to him by a gracious God. The dialogal quality of the relation to God is still subordinated to a quasi-legal pact.

In the commentary on Hebrews 5.1 Luther cites St. Bernard as a corrective to his earlier combination of objective certitude and subjective incertitude about salvation: “Oportet, ut credas Deum posse remittere tibi peccata, conferre gratiam et dare gloriam. Nec hoc satis est, nisi tibi remissa peccata, collatam gratiam et donandam gloriam certissime credas” (You should believe that God can remit your sins, confer grace and give glory, Nor is this enough, unless you believe with complete certainty that he has remitted your sins and has accorded grace and will give glory to you) (WA 57.170; paraphrased from Bernard, In festo annuntiationis I 3). To approach the Eucharist worthily, one must be purified by faith: “Si credant et confidant sese gratiam ibi consecuturos, haec sola fides facit eos puros et dignos, quae non nititur in operibus illis, sed in purissimo, piissimo, firmissimo verbo Christi dicentis: ‘Venite ad me omnes, qui laboratis et onerati estis, ego reficiam vos’ (Mt. 11.28). In praesumptione igitur istorum verborum accedendum est, et sic accedentes non confundentur” (If they believe and trust that they will obtain grace there, this faith alone makes them pure and worthy, who rely not on those works but on the most pure, pious, firm word of Christ saying: ‘Come to me all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I shall give you rest’) (WA 57.171). Presumption is no longer a sin of pride to be avoided but the trusting presumption whereby one hears and accepts Christ’s word of salvation. The concreteness of the encounter with the Word dissolves the fretful introspective to-and-fro between despair and presumption. The drama of salvation is not taking place in a murky introspective realm but in an open encounter in which the announcement of the Gospel is met by the believer’s repentant acceptance of it.

Luther had followed a theory of Peter Lombard that was rejected at the Council of Florence in taking the words of absolution in the sacrament of penance as simply declaring that God had already forgiven the sinner:

Thus the word of absolution is understood as a judgement in the sense of a statement. Luther at first still remains entirely within the framework of the ancient understanding of language, especially the Stoic one, which Augustine inherited and which still widely prevails today. According to it, language is a system of signs that point to objects or states of affairs, or of signs that express an emotion. In both cases the sign – as statement or as expression – is not the matter itself. That the linguistic sign itself is already the matter itself, that it does not represent a matter that is absent but one that is present: this was Luther’s great hermeneutical discovery, his reformational discovery in the strict sense... The word of absolution does not register, but constitutes. It is a linguistic performance that itself produces an active rapport, inaugurates a relationship, between the one in whose name it is uttered and the one to whom it is uttered and who believes the assurance. (Bayer, 6)

The new view of language allowed Luther to refocus the sacrament of Penance. In freeing the word of forgiveness at the heart of this sacrament from all the other aspects that had accrued around it, Luther relegated the sacrament itself to obscurity. As Seeberg remarked, the reformation doctrine of justification can be seen as a replacement for the sacrament of Penance.

Luther’s interpretation of the maxim ‘not the sacrament but faith in the sacrament is what justifies’ (WA 1.544,40-1), and his stress on the subjective certitude of the penitent who receives the word of absolution in faith, became the major issue, alongside the controversy about indulgences, in the debate with Cajetan at Augsburg, October 12-14, 1518. To Cajetan, Luther’s stress on the certitude of faith seemed the charter for founding an entirely new Church. But on better acquaintance with Luther’s writings Cajetan later discovered an orthodox sense in the claim that certain faith was a requirement for absolution; the certitude concerned the efficacity of the sacrament but not its actual effect in the recipient (see Wicks 1992:175). That would not have satisfied Luther, for he would see it as undermining the power and authority of the divine word spoken to the sinner. If the word is embraced in faith it cannot miss of its effect. Perhaps Luther misstated the nature of the certitude of faith, making it seem a reflexive exercise in self-persuasion. Sometimes it is necessary to save Luther from himself, that is, to select his most articulate presentations of the Gospel from among others that are more opaque. Noting Jared Wicks’s retraction of his earlier judgement that Luther’s stress on certitude in faith of being forgiven ‘drained the earlier themes of the rich spirituality’ they had in the pre-1518 writings (1969:273; retracted 1992:118), we draw the lesson that the way to bring out the coherence of Luther’s message is to look to where it is shaped by the concrete address of the Gospel word, rather than by residues of tradition that this word overrides or relativises. Sometimes Luther falls short of evangelical insight, sometimes he overshoots the mark in exaggerations, but wherever he is found listening to the word of the Gospel, that is where his authentic insights are being generated.

Luther’s vision of absolution as a word spoken to us from outside means that ‘In distinction from every metaphysical construction of the doctrine of God, God’s truth and will are not abstract attributes, but something related in an oral and public manner as a concrete address to a specific hearer in a specific situation’ (Bayer, 49). Bayer insists that Luther won his way to this clear identification of how God works for our salvation through a long process of deliberate theological questioning, and he rejects talk of ‘originalities that are not to be clarified’ and generic accounts of the ‘primacy of the Word’ or the ‘priority of Word to sacrament’ (Jetter, 255-93. 339, 191), pointing out that it is precise developments within these basic notions that bring the specifically reformational insight (Bayer, 105, 114). Salvation was located in many different places in the medieval fabric of theology. Luther located it in the word of Christ addressing the sinner with forgiveness. “Neque enim deus (ut dixi) aliter cum hominibus unquam egit aut agit quam uerbo promissionis. Rursus, nec nos cum deo unquam agere aliter possumus, quam fide in uerbum promissionis eius” (Nor does God ever deal or act with humans otherwise than by the word of promise. Again, neither can we ever deal with God other than through faith in his word of promise) (WA 6.516). ‘It was a liberation for Luther to overcome both the fixation on pious activity, and the fixation on the inwardness of true love of God, in hearing the word of the Gospel that declares one free and thereby through the reception of saving righteousness outside us – extra nos’ (Hamm, 44). Very often piety becomes a cocoon, and people enclose themselves in a sytem of ritual habits, instead of listening to others or to the Lord, somewhat as if one were to hum one’s favourite melodies to oneself rather than hearing them performed anew. Luther is always trying to shake his hearers out of this spiritual autism, showing that the Gospel is not a treasury of pious thoughts or practices, but a challenging and strengthening word addressed to us, to be heard afresh each time it encounters us. Today we would stress more strongly that the word bears directly on the structures of our society and summons us to action as a prophetic community.

The language of the Gospel, Luther shows, is not an objectifying metaphysical language, nor is it an inner word heard only in the depths of the heart. It is an incarnate language, one actualized again and again in real-life exchanges – between the preached word and its hearers, and between believers who administer to one another the assurance of Christ’s mercy (this was his understanding of the sacrament of Penance). This incarnational sense of language owes much to the humanists’ rediscovery of language in all its historical richness and variety by the human. Luther saw all human languages as sanctified when the divine word was translated into them, and he saw the revival of linguistic scholarship in Renaissance humanism as a significant event in the history of salvation (Meinhold, 18, 28-30). Luther’s thought is self-consciously embedded in rhetorical discourse, and he inherits the humanist conception of rhetoric as a power to shape the real world. He ‘saw the enthroning of rhetoric once again as the regina artium as a necessary prerequisite for a purified and affective theology’ (Spitz, 386; quoted, Maaser, 21). The Reformation is often regarded, notably by Nietzsche, as having tragically aborted the development of humanistic culture and thought. Yet Luther can also be seen as having effected a humanist renovation of the theological landscape, by putting his hearers in touch with the sources and by allowing the sources to speak in the vernacular, in preaching and in hymnody. His recovery of the word is nourished in hidden ways by the humanist concern with language. The word he recovered was not the Hellenic one but the biblical one. Modern German was shaped on a biblical basis, with Luther’s Bible as its central text. The Weimar Classicism of Goethe and Schiller would reactivate in Germany the humanist recovery of Greece. This cult of Greece was no doubt a necessary strategy to gain freedom from the prison-house of Lutheran language. It has no equivalent in England, where the pagan abundance of Shakespeare had already supplemented the language of the Bible. Later Hellenizers such as Hölderlin, Nietzsche and Heidegger battle to create and sustain a word-event as powerful as the Lutheran one.

WHAT IS MISSING IN LUTHER’S EARLY WRITINGS

The key role of the spoken word goes hand in hand with a new emphasis on the believer’s certainty of salvation. The Commentary on Romans, 1515-16, regarded by Karl Holl as containing the full form of Luther’s theology, lacked this understanding of the Gospel as an authoritative word, dispelling fear and doubt. The focus on Luther’s pre-Reformation writings early in the twentieth century had the unfortunate effect of causing Luther to be seen as a gloomy, tormented theologian, which indeed is what he was before the breakthrough of February 1518. Like Holl, Reinhold Seeberg in his volume on Luther in his History of Dogma gives excessive prominence to the early works, and conveys a rather depressing image of Luther’s teaching, as a constant battle with guilt feelings, if not a losing battle. Seeberg is fascinated by the way the medieval heritage is gradually transformed in these early writings as the reformational vision takes form, but he does not adequately convey the simplicity and force of the reformation breakthrough, or its joyful, liberating impact.

Luther in these early years was working with the pactum or covenant theology of Gabriel Biel: ‘God, in his mercy and liberality, ordained to enter into a pactum with man, by which he is prepared to ascribe a much greater value to human acts than they are inherently worth Thus although a man who does quod in se est has done nothing of any particular inherent value, God accords it a much greater value within the terms of the pactum’ (McGrath, 104). For Luther, the act that would attract God’s reward was one of self-abasement and self-condemnation, which God consented to count as salvific. Biel falls into semi-Pelagianism in holding that the first step in our redemption, doing what in us lies, does not require the prior intervention of grace converting the will. Aquinas had insisted on the necessity of this grace, but Biel failed to notice this (see Farthing, 150-80). McGrath points out that Biel intended to refute Pelagianism, but that is a poor argument for his immunity to this most insidious of theological errors. In practice, Biel’s ‘optimism about the human capacity to contribute actively to one’s own justification before God had the effect of setting up a theology of self-reliance that leaves the viator subject to a potentially terrifying sense of responsibility to merit God’s grace (even if only de congruo) by disposing himself for grace (faciendo quod in se est) without any additional assistance or enablement beyond his purely natural endowment as a moral and rational creature (ex suis naturalibus)’ (Farthing, 178).

Hans Joachim Iwand, in his gripping volume on Luther, also gives prominence to the early writings. He is critical of Melanchthon, accusing him of replacing the transformational understanding of justification with a merely imputative one. He says that ‘Holl has reformed the Melanchthonian approach to the doctrine of justification and made the authentic, young, bold Luther perceptible again’ (51). Holl (123) sees justification as grounded in God’s aim to sanctify the sinner; justification is the means to this ‘making righteous’ as the end. ‘Unlike Luther, Melanchthon was not able to grasp the entire new life as a coherent divine work, as the goal toward which God is aiming in justification’ (Iwand, 49). I fail to see this alleged incoherence in Melanchthon’s account of justification and sanctification, an account which the later Luther, of the 1531 Commentary on Galatians, apparently shares. To say that justification is a free gift given independently of the goal of sanctification does not exclude that sanctification begins immediately with justification. Luther included this new life under the rubric of justification in his early writing, but differentiated it out in his later writing, no doubt to keep at bay the idea that justification is logically consequent on sanctification, which would undermine its sheer gratuity.

Iwand evokes the ‘joyous exchange’ whereby Christ takes on our sins and gives us his righteousness instead, but in the same breath notes that ‘there is a real forgiveness, but no ablation of sin, except in hope’ (71). Justification begins the transformation of the sinner, but is in no way contingent on this transformation. Justification is a free gift whereby the sinner is clothed with Christ’s righteousness, so that when he looks to himself he is still a sinner, but when he looks to Christ in faith he is a saint, transferred to a new realm of being. The simul justus et peccator is an exodic structure; isolate the sinner in his present state and he is a sinner, place him in the dynamic open horizon of the Christ-event, which he embraces in faith, and he is free, and can stand confidently before God in righteousness. The variety of the rhetoric in which Luther recreates his Anfechtungen and his release from them by the word of the Gospel dramatizes the unexpectedness of grace in a thousand forms. For the justified sinner, sin is no longer regnans but regnatum, and is thus no longer imputed as sin (WA 56.274; WA 8.93). God wills our sanctification, but his graciousness is shown first and foremost in his imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us while we are yet sinners. Fear that the celebration of justification may lead to moral slackness seems to underlie much of the scholarly insistence on justification as transformational. There is also an ontological anxiety, a wish to make justification more rational and logical.

A focus on the early Luther also weighs down Alister McGrath’s account of Luther’s theologia crucis, which he sees as the heart of the reformational vision. It is not just any theology of the cross that identifies the reformation message. What marks it as specifically reformational is that the cross is grasped not primarily as an inner experience but as a word, the verbum crucis of I Corinthians 1.18. “Luther’s discovery of the righteousness of God [in 1515] is but one step in the process leading to the theology of the cross” (99). It would be better to say that the discovery of the righteousness of God, as a gift ‘passively’ received by the sinner in faith, is deepened and clarified as Luther reflects on the dialectic of the cross, and that both are fully clarified only when concretized in a concrete address, the Gospel word of absolution. When McGrath refers to the word of the cross, he does not stress the nature of that word as an act of forgiveness. “The word of the cross reveals the gulf between the preconceived and the revealed God” (160) – yes, but the important thing is how this gulf is revealed: in the miracle of God’s free justification of the ungodly.

McGrath stresses excessively the hiddenness of God in the cross. He interprets the cross as showing God’s mercy hidden under God’s wrath, and quotes the early Psalms lectures to this effect (155). But Luther moved beyond this paradox, or at least gave it a richer sense. In the post-1518 vision, it is not by being humbled and condemned that the sinner is saved; the humbling and condemnation effected by the Law yields to the word of the Gospel that raises the sinner to life. McGrath tries to make the Law do the work of the Gospel when he writes: “the Word of God, by passing a severe judgement upon man, makes him a sinner, and thus executes the opus alienum – but in that this moves man to cry out to God for mercy and grace (which are immediately forthcoming!), it indirectly executes the opus proprium” (155). But the word of the cross as a word of redemption should emerge in dramatic contrast to the word of condemnation, as in Romans 3.21-6; the two words cannot be telescoped into one. Luther’s rhetoric of finding salvation under the disguise of condemnation is very powerful: “Bonum enim nostrum absconditum est et ita profunde, ut sub contrario absconditum est. Sic vita nostra sub morte, dilectio nostri sub odio nostri, gloria sub ignominia, salus sub perditione, regnum sub exilio, caelum sub inferno, sapientia sub stultitia, iustitia sub peccato, virtus sub infirmitate.” (For our good is hidden, and so deeply that it is hidden under its opposite. Thus our life is hidden under death, love for us under hate for us, glory under shame, salvation under damnation, kingdom under exile, heaven under hell, wisdom under stupidity, justice under sin, strength under weakness) (WA 56.392). But that this is not the last word of reformation insight is clear from the fact that Luther is still thinking along the lines of Pseudo-Dionysius’s Theologia Mystica, which he goes on to paraphrase: “Ut fides locum habeat in Deo, qui est negativa essentia et bonitas et sapientia et iustitia. Nec potest possideri aut attingi nisi negatis omnibus affirmativis nostris” (So that faith may have its locus in God, who is negative being and goodness and wisdom and justice, and who cannot be possessed or attained except when all our affirmations are negated) (WA 56.392-3). This structure of thought is still far from the concreteness of the encounter with the saving word of Christ that becomes central in 1518. Commenting on Colossians 3.3, ‘Our life is hidden with Christ in God’, Luther says that it lies “in negatione omnium quae sentiri, haberi et intelligi possunt. Sic et sapientia et iustitia nostra non apparet nobis omnino” (in the negation of all that can be perceived, possessed or understood. Thus our wisdom and justice does not appear to us at all) (WA 56.393). But in the reformation breakthrough our salvation does appear, in a word that we can hear, understand and grasp in faith. The negative theology of the Romans commentary yields to its opposite, a confident kataphatic theology building on the Gospel word.

Is the contrast I am drawing here completely clear and luminous? Do authors like Bizer and Bayer overemphasize the differences in order to bolster their own theological vision? It is not impossible that as he continues to wield the theologia crucis in his later writings Luther may occasionally have fallen back from the positive force of his reformation insight, so that the exegete of Luther has to bring out the main line of this thought, deciding what to stress and what to ignore. So mobile a thinker as Luther demands an equal mobility and critical freedom from the reader who wants to draw from him what makes for theological edification. The scholarly checking of one’s reconstruction of Luther’s vision against the complex detail of his texts is an endless task, but it should not be allowed to impede our encounter with the Reformer’s witness to the Gospel.

McGrath stresses the ‘wonderful exchange’ in which the condemnation falls on Christ while the sinner is mantled with Christ’s righteousness. But he misses the modality by which this is brought home to the doubting sinner. “As we contemplate the grim spectacle of the angefochtene Christus on the cross, we come to realise that Christ did not undergo Anfechtung for his own benefit, but for ours... Reason is totally unable to comprehend this astonishing mystery, by which we are made the righteousness of God” (173). What is missing here is the experience of being addressed by a concrete word. The cross is not a mute spectacle whose significance ‘we come to realise’ in silent contemplation, and if it baffles reason it is not due to any murkiness. The sense of the cross is lucidly presented in the joyful tidings of the Gospel, and it is in hearing these tidings that we first come to know the cross as an event of salvation. McGrath speaks as if finding the gracious sense of the cross was an exercise in spiritual discernment that we are left to carry on with no help from an external public word: “If God is understood to be hidden in his revelation, the believer will always be prone to doubt as to whether the opus proprium really does lie behind the opus alienum, or whether God really is hidden, and not simply absent altogether” (172). In the full reformational vision, the believer is ‘prone to doubt’ only when he falls off into unbelief. Faith itself clearly recognizes presence of God in the word of forgiveness, a word that in itself offers no grounds for doubting it.

McGrath is overly prudent about calling Luther a ‘theologian of the Word of God’, which he claims would be a ‘serious anachronism’ (159). But there is no anachronism in finding a community between Luther and twentieth century theologies of the Word, for the latter arose in conscious dependence on Luther. Late in his account he does stress that “the Word of God, and especially the preached Word, is the means of grace by which the sinner is justified” (174), but his characterization of the Word lacks the dynamism of a living address. “Luther insists that the word to which all theology must be related is the word of the cross” (159). But the cross makes sense only as part of the Gospel, and the word of the cross is redemptive only because it is the word of the Gospel. McGrath points away from the Gospel to the cross, with the result that the cross is characterized as an unwieldy metaphysical paradox. When he says that ‘All responsible Christian discourse must be based upon the cross, and must be subject to criticism on that basis’ (159) he points to Moltmann’s book The Crucified God, with its strained kenotic speculation, as a model of what he means. There is a whole world of passion-mysticism and passion-speculation, flourishing within Lutheranism as much as anywhere else, which distorts the Gospel interpretation of Christ crucified.

McGrath has Bayer’s book in his bibliography but ignores it in the course of his discussion. Bayer clearly points out the specific impact of the reformation breakthrough that McGrath misses. In the Romans commentary, Luther talked of judgement turning into grace: “adversario huic consentiendum est et sic fiet amicus” (we must agree with this adversary and thus let him become a friend) (WA 56.368,28). Here, “the Gospel meets the human being from the outside in one sole form – as opponent –, but acts in a double fashion in the inner turn-about: in judgement lies grace. It goes forth as accusation in a fully public way, as word of absolution in a fully concealed way – not loudly and audibly as ‘the other word’” (WA 7.24,9). However this hiddenness of the turn-about that refrains from any oral address is the basis of its intrinsic uncertainty. Yes, it must be believed; but since it does not present itself as an unambiguous word faith in it remains uncertain, that is, in hope’ (Bayer, 38). McGrath talks of the hidden God, but misses the difference between the way God is hidden (absconditus) in the early theology of the cross – having to be discovered as gracious under his presentation as condemning, and the way God is hidden in the mature theology, in which ‘Deus absconditus and revelatus (or praedicatus) are not identified but distinguished – a distinction that precisely serves to create certainty. The revelatio still appears also as absconditas; otherwise one could not speak theologically of unbelief’ (Bayer, 62). God is hidden only to unbelief in the mature theology; the word and the faith that accepts it are characterized by certainty through and through.

THE STRUGGLE TO APPROPRIATE THE CERTITUDE OF FAITH

“Ich hab nichts getan, das wort hatt es alles gehandelt und aussgericht” (I have done nothing; the Word has taken care of it all and carried it through), said Luther in a sermon of 1522 (WA 10/3.19). The scriptural word, actualized in his preaching and polemic, was the major protagonist in Luther’s life. Luther spoke boldly, with an air of infallible certitude. But he did not speak in his own name. The private man was beset by doubts and temptations, Anfechtungen, but when he placed himself under the Word, boldly asserting its authority, he found himself lifted to a different sphere, placed before God as sinner and as justified at once, simul iustus et peccator. Perhaps there is a double register in Luther’s discourse. When he preaches or writes as a theologian, he speaks from the position of certitude granted by the divine word, or indeed lets the divine word articulate itself in his own words. “God has placed His Word in our mouth to preach, so that He reaches and preaches through us, and we are nothing more than His mouth and tongue” (WA 37.437). Luther had a strong sense that God speaks not only through the words of scripture but through the words they call forth from the preacher or theologian in response; he counted Melanchton’s 1521 Loci Communes as a canonical book (canone Ecclesiastico dignum, WA 18.601, 6) in that it clearly expressed the Gospel.

When he looks to himself, however, he confesses a gulf between his certitude in faith and his lack of grip when faith loses its vigour: “I myself am not certain of this article night and day. I cannot grasp it as firmly as I should. I am better at writing and talking about it than at feeling it from the heart” (WA 34/1.234). “Spiritus sanctus non est scepticus” (the Holy Spirit is no sceptic) (WA 18.605), he declared against Erasmus. It was the Word that brought the certitude of the Spirit to bear on his own wavering spirit. “Since the Holy Ghost is no sceptic and writes assertions (assertiones) in our hearts, the human being must speak just as decisively – this statement indicates not so much certitude in theological judgement as much rather a care-filled summons to oneself... It is the effort of the timid soul to attain steadfast faith by using words as steadfast as a cliff. What Luther expresses in an apodictic manner rests entirely on a biblical basis and indicates a lack of self-warranted ego-certainty. The question of personal identity is still undecided. It will first come to decision in trust in the expounded Word of God, written in the human heart and therefore undismissable: quale est verbum, talis ab eo fit anima (as is the word, so is the soul made by it) (WA 7.53)” (Lorenz, 78).

His own subjectivity was fragile and uncertain but his salvation came ‘from without’ (extrinsice) in the word that spoke pardon, the Freispruch that was the event on which Christianity is founded, ‘the essence (Kern und Stern) of the whole Gospel’ (WA 37.549). This liberating word crystallizes the meaning of all the events of salvation. The birth, death and resurrection of Christ and the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist all have their meaning in this word coming to the sinner from outside and transporting him or her into a new manner of being. In a sermon on Mt. 11.25-30 Luther stresses that Christ’s miracles are less full of comfort and security than his words: “Nam quod praedicatur Christus fecisse miracula, non est so trostlich et securum, ut fidas illi, ut videas plus ligen in verbis Christi quam factis... Non solatur te ut haec Christi verba, quibus proponit mihi misericordiam et gratiam” (For that Christ is preached as having worked miracles is not as comforting and full of assurance, as that you should trust in him, and see that more lies in the words of Christ than in the deeds... They are not such a comfort to you as these words of Christ by which he offers to me mercy and grace) (WA 17/1.38). If for Luther the doctrine of justification by faith alone is the essence of Christianity, the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae, the article whereby the Church stands or falls, the central enactment of that doctrine is the event of hearing and believing the word of forgiveness, conferring grace and righteousness on the sinner. This vision implies a new understanding of language that breaks with traditional philosophy.

LAW AND GOSPEL
  The moral law is also brought home to us by a divine word. The secret murmuring of conscience is crystallized and attains full clarity when confronted with a word of judgement spoken from the Lord. The voice of the Gospel in its sweetness is heard in contrast a prior word of condemnation. In the terrible voice of Moses God condemns humanity by holding up to them the Law that they are powerless to fulfil and that reveals the bondage of their will to sin. “Mosi vero et legislatoris opus est contrarium, ut per legem homini miseriam suam patefaciat, ut sic contritum et confusum in sui cognitione ad gratiam praeparet et ad Christum mittat, et sic salvus fiat” (The work of Moses, of the legislator, is the opposite: to reveal to man his misery through the Law, that thus crushed and abashed in the knowledge of himself he can prepare him for grace and send him to Christ, that so he may be saved) (WA 18.679,33-6). For the Law, Luther often uses the imagery of writing rather than speech, following Pauline usage: “the letter kills, it is the Spirit that gives life”, and the Augustinian text that meant most to Luther at the time of the reformation breakthrough, De Spiritu et Littera. The Spirit is associated with the gracious voice of the Gospel, and a spiritual reading of the Old Testament means the discovery in its pages, too, of the Gospel voice. Conversely, the Law is preached within the pages of the Gospel. Luther’s earliest sermon, on Matthew 7.12 (WA 4.590-5), insists that failure to share one’s goods with one’s neighbour is the equivalent of robbery. Charity here is the most demanding of laws. Note that in Luther the demands of the Law are not directed primarily at stirring up sexual guilt, but at bringing home to us how trapped we are in a cocoon of egoism. The Spirit can work through the Law to show us our sinfulness. ‘The content of the law is Christ as demand; the content of the Gospel, to the contrary, is Christ as gift’ (Prenter, 119).

Regin Prenter casts the Law in the role of a dead letter and claims that only the Gospel is authentically the word of God (107). I think it is better to say that both are God’s word, through which he deals with us in different ways. The Law can be known by rational conscience, without faith, but when it is preached to us, especially by the voice of Christ, it lays claim on us more undeniably. Then the Spirit uses the Law to make sin manifest (see Prenter, 217). The Law pushes us to “the definitive bankruptcy of all piety based on Law” (220). The Law is not a mere forecourt to the Gospel, as it tends to become in Melanchthon, and the crisis into which it plunges us is not a mere transitional phase, but a dramatic ordeal, Anfechtung, a spiritual death and annihilation, from which the Gospel raises us to life.

When God condemns us in the Law that is a work which is ultimately alien to Him, the opus alienum Dei. His proper work, the opus proprium Dei, is the free gift of forgiveness, conferring the righteousness of Christ on the sinner, who receives it by faith in the word. The application of this existential dialectic in one’s spiritual life and in one’s understanding of Scripture is not automatic but demands what Luther calls ‘the highest art of Christianity’ (WA 36.9, 28-9, die hoechste Kunst jnn der Christenheit), the discernment that knows when and where to apply the notions of Law and Gospel (see Weymann 2003; Ebeling 1964:120-36; 1995). The distinction is a dynamic one, which we learn to apply again and again. It also allows some flexibility of manoeuvre, a judgement about when to play on which register.

Luther’s distinction of Law and Gospel makes him one of the sunniest of theologians. The Gospel limits the Law “so that it no longer reaches the human being in his conscience. Christ steps between the Law and the human being who is sought by it and threatened by it with accusations and with death” (Iwand, 75-6). The Law has its claims, but serves chiefly to show us our weakness, and thus to prepare us for the reception of the totally gratuitous gift of justification. (See the joyful celebration of this in the Advent sermon in WA 34/2.443-9). Christians do not even need it (Seeberg, 253); salvation is granted apart from it; but the Law has validity as an innate moral code and as a charter for the right ordering of church and society. The worst perversion of Christianity is to change it from a message of redemption into a religion of laws and regulations.

In the quarrel about sexual ethics now dividing the Anglican communion, there is much insistence on grounding ethics in Scripture, and a quite Lutheran insistence that the Church is born from the Word. All parties to the conflict claim to be hearers of the Word. Some have attended to the letter of the Law, in a fundamentalist sense; others are concerned with the Law in its full Christian expanse, and may recognize the need to reformulate our conceptions of morality in light of new knowledge; others again emphasize the Gospel, as granting freedom of conscience and setting up the field of agapeic covenant relationships, with same-sex versions in the relations between Ruth and Naomi, David and Jonathan; others finally hear the Word as eschatological liberation.

Luther himself would probably fit in a liberal position on this spectrum, though Lutheran tradition is often more conservative. In his exposition of the Law Luther does not invariably dwell on its terrors, and when he does, he locates them more in the call to righteousness as such rather than in particular difficult precepts. In a 1525 sermon on how Christians should read Moses (WA 16.363ff.) he does not mention the condemnatory role of the Law (usus elenchticus legis) at all, but stresses that the Law is oriented to our works; it is what God demands of us; but the Gospel deals with God’s work and what God gives us. The Mosaic law, intended for the Jews, offers some wise commandments that Christians may adopt if they wish to; the ten commandments are treated as a natural law inscribed in our hearts; the books of Moses also give examples of upright living, and above all contain promises of Christ and Gospel. Striking a blow against fundamentalism, as represented by the Anabaptist Schwärmer, Luther stresses that not all the words of God in Scripture are addressed to the contemporary believer; we must discern between words addressed to us and archaic commandments never intended to be binding on everyone. Here a monolithic conception of divine speech yields to a polyvocal conception of Scripture, one that could be much further developed to demystify the Church’s relation to Scripture today, at a time when scholarship has laid bare the immense pluralism of outlooks reflected in the scriptural texts.

THE PRIMACY OF THE WORD

Early on, Luther opposes the scriptural sense of ‘substance’ to the philosophical one. The scriptural usage indicates that which sustains one – the wealthy is sustained by wealth the voluptuary by pleasures, as long as they last; in this sense substance is more an external quality than a thing’s essence, “quia Scriptura nihil curat quidditates rerum, sed qualitates tantum” (Scripture is not concerned at all with the essences of things but only with their qualities) (WA 3.419). Even God is in a certain sense de-substantialized in Luther’s theology. Likewise, the reality of Christ is first and foremost that of a word-event. We have access to Christ only in the word of the Gospel, and apart from this word, received in faith, there is no Christian salvation. “Wie erlang und hab ich aber den? Ei, den magst du nit anders haben denn im Evangelio” (How to I attain and possess him? Well, you can have him no other wise than in the Gospel) (WA 10/3.349). ÉChristus wird nicht erkannt, allein durch sein Wort, sonst hülfe mir Christus Fleisch nichts und wenn es gleich heute käme” (Christ is known only through his word; otherwise Christ’s flesh would help me not at all even if it came today) (WA 10/3.210,11). Christ comes to human beings in a historical, human way, so that the event of salvation happens as the word of forgiveness spoken by a man to his fellow-humans. The oral and public character of this word is stressed. Salvation comes from the encounter with a word outside oneself, not from listening to a mystical word in the depths of the heart or even from reading the Scripture in the privacy of one’s study. Christ is no longer an invisible judge, or the inscrutable substance presented in the Eucharist, but is accessible through hearing his concrete word of forgiveness, addressed to us. The word is found in Scripture, especially when reactivated in preaching, and in the sacraments, which centre on the word. Christ’s substance or person is identical with his saving office, expressed in the word-encounter, and we should not seek to go back behind this encounter to know its ontological foundation. Christ is known not as some neat dogmatic explanation but in an incarnational way, in the give and take of human language.

The Word has a primacy over the letter of Scripture as well. Luther exerts great critical freedom in his reception of Scripture, and in fact inaugurates the crisis of Christian tradition that would become more marked with the rise of critical study of Scripture (see Baur, 72-81). Sola scriptura does not mean blind submission to the letter of Scripture, nor is it primarily a statement about the ultimate authority to which the church appeals in its teaching. Rather is declares that Scripture offers the sole recourse and refuge, the sole source of life for the afflicted sinner, insofar as Scripture contains the saving word of Christ. We do not listen to this word in silence, but respond to it in creative speech. This response is an active interpretation and even critique of Scripture. The clarity of Scripture, on which Luther insists in his polemic with Erasmus, is not that of transparent rational propositions but that of a saving process genuinely encountered as we wrestle with Scripture in a critical hermeneutic. The claim that Scripture is its own interpreter, sui ipsius interpres should be taken in this sense, and not as a slogan of dogmatic closure. Scripture is its own interpreter, but this means that it is also its own critic, and the theologian and preacher can participate in this self-interpretation and self-critique of Scripture.

The Lutheran orthodoxy of the seventeenth century, represented by such figures as the Wittenberg theologian Johannes Quenstedt (1617-1688), reacted against this freedom, tightening the identity between the letter of Scripture and the divine Word. Quenstedt says: “The act of writing, just as the act of preaching, is incidental to the Word of God and is only an external accident [pathos] of the Word, an auxiliary mode of proclaiming and communicating the Word, which does not alter the essence of the divine Word” (quoted by R. Preus). From the Calvinist viewpoint of Karl Barth, in contrast, the event of hearing the Word is occasioned by the letter of Scripture and the voice of the kerygma, but not in such a way as to allow any automatic identity between the Word and these vehicles. He rejects Quenstedt’s idea that there is a divine actus primus in Bible and preaching independent of the actus secundus in the heart of the hearer (KD I/1.113). ‘Church preaching understands itself only as service of the word of God, as a means of grace in the hand of the free God’ (KD I/1.55).

Luther himself speaks of the biblical word as charged with spiritual dynamis, and as the carrier of a divine spirit that is ‘hidden’ in it. However, “God has not delegated his spiritual power to the Word, but acts through the Word in his freedom always in a present and actual way; he does not give his Spirit into the hand of the preacher” (Althaus, 45). The Spirit can make a word effective for one ten years after one has heard it (WA 31/1.100,1). “Sic ego ago poenitentiam, quando Deus me trifft lege et Evangelio. De tempore et hora non possumus dicere, ipse novit, quando velit me convertere” (Thus I do penance when God touches me by Law and Gospel. Of the time and hour we cannot tell; He knows, who wishes to convert me) (WA 39/1.369,12).

The primacy of word over substance and over the letter of Scripture is matched by a certain primacy of the word over the Spirit as well. German mysticism had spawned what today we might call a New Age reliance on the movement of the Spirit within one’s heart, expressed notably by Sebastian Franck, who stressed the inner word and devalued the outer one. Luther recalled such movements of religious enthusiasm to the authority of the Word. God speaks inwardly in the heart through the Spirit, but only if one has first heard an outer word, as the Schmalcald Articles emphasize (WA 50.245). Spirit and Word are correlated in the early Luther, but bound together integrally in his mature theology. “Luther’s considerations on philosophy of language build on the premises that since Augustine have shaped Western thinking on the connection of spirit and word” (Meinhold, 56). But Luther overcomes the dualism in Augustine’s conception. ‘This close binding of Word and Spirit allows Luther to ward off any spiritualism that slights the outer word, and that could appeal to Augustine with some justice. At the same time it preserves for the divine word the freedom of its action, in that God through the use of this instrument acts “where and in whom he wills” (Marburg Articles, 8; Schwabach Articles, 7)’ (Meinhold, 56-7). ‘The Word is for Luther first and last an oral word, and thus a living proclamation, always in the present. Yet the living word is also bound’ (Althaus, 71).

Prenter finds a tension between Luther’s insistence on the inseparability of Word and Spirit on the one hand and the continuation of an Augustinian model, in which the word can become a dead instrument when divorced from Spirit on the other (109-11). He refuses to see, like Seeberg, a development from the Augustinianism of the early writings to an overcoming of residual dualism in the later. But such a tension is only what one might expect, given the way in which metaphysical habits of thought cling to us, and are built into the very structure of our language, as Heidegger points out. Prenter resolves the tension by invoking Christology and the notion of predestination. ‘Only when the Holy Spirit makes Christ present in the word does it become God’s own, living word. If that does not occur, the word is only letter, Law, description of Christ. Conversely, however, the Spirit cannot act without being bound to the outer word, since it is his task to make Christ present’ (111).

THE SACRAMENTS AS WORD-EVENTS

Luther’s understanding of the Eucharist is informed by his rediscovery of the word-character of salvation. He locates the meaning of the sacrament in Christ’s words of institution. The sacrament is a seal affixed to the testament announced in those words about a new covenant for the forgiveness of sins. “Est itaque Missa, secundum substantiam suam, proprie nihil aliud, quam uerba Christi praedicta: Accipite et manducate etc. ac si dicat: Ecce o homo peccator et damnatus, ex mera gratuitaque charitate, qua diligo te, sic uolente misericordiarum patre, his uerbis promitto tibi, ante omne meritum et uotum tuum, remissionem omnium peccatorum tuorum, et uitam aeternam. Et ut certissimus de hac mea promissione irreuocabili sis, corpus meum tradam, et sanguinem fundam, morte ipsa hanc promissionem confirmaturus, et utrunque tibi in signum et memoriale eiusdem promissionis relicturus. Quod cum frequentaueris, mei memor sis, hanc meam in te charitatem et largitatem praedices et laudes, et gratias agas” (The mass, according to its substance, is, therefore, nothing else than the words of Christ mentioned above — ‘Take and eat’. It is as if He said: ‘Behold, condemned, sinful man, in the pure and unmerited love with which I love you, and by the will of the Father of all mercies, I promise you in these words, even though you do not desire or deserve them, the forgiveness of all your sins and life everlasting. And, so that you may be most certainly assured of this my irrevocable promise, I give my body and shed my blood, thus by my very death confirming this promise, and leaving my body and blood to you as a sign and memorial of this same promise. As often, therefore, as you partake of them, remember me, and praise, magnify, and give thanks for my love and bounty for you’) (WA 6.515). The sacrament like the word is presented to faith, faith that can save even without the sacrament: “fidem in sacramento adeo necessariam, ut etiam sine sacramento servare possit” (WA 1.533,36). It sounds as if the Eucharist is performing the same function as the sacrament of Penance, and as if both are dispensable, since the one thing needful is the hearing of the word. A narrowness of focus in Luther’s thought may prevent him from developing a wider theology of the Eucharist as the meal of the Kingdom and as promising transformation of the earth.

Luther denounces the abstruse language of scholastic theology of the Eucharist: “Absurda est ergo et noua uerborum impositio, panem pro specie uel accidentibus panis, uinum pro specie uel accidentibus uini accipi. Cur non et omnia alia pro speciebus et accidentibus accipiunt? Quod si caetera omnia constarent, non tamen liceret, uerba dei sic eleuare, et cum tanta iniuria suis significationibus exinaniri” (Therefore it is an absurd and unheard-of juggling with words, to understand ‘bread’ to mean ‘the form, or accidents of bread’, and ‘wine’ to mean ‘the form, or accidents of wine’. Why do they not also understand all other things to mean their forms, or accidents? Even if this might be done with all other things, it would yet not be right thus to emasculate the words of God and arbitrarily to empty them of their meaning; trans. Albert T. W. Steinhäuser) (WA 6.509). The root of this linguistic degeneration is the influence of Aristotle: “Sed et Ecclesia ultra mille ducentos annos recte credidit, nec usquam nec unquam de ista transsubstantiatione (portentoso scilicet uocabulo et somnio) meminerunt sancti patres, donec cepit Aristotelis simulata philosophia in Ecclesia grassari, in istis trecentis nouissimis annis, in quibus et alia multa perperam sunt determinata. quale est, Essentiam diuinam nec generari nec generare, Animam esse formam substantialem corporis humani, et iis similia, ut ipsemet confitetur Card. Camera” (Moreover, the Church had the true faith for more than twelve hundred years, during which time the holy Fathers never once mentioned this transubstantiation — certainly, a monstrous word for a monstrous idea — until the pseudo-philosophy of Aristotle became rampant in the Church these last three hundred years. During these centuries many other things have been wrongly defined, for example, that the Divine essence neither is begotten nor begets, that the soul is the substantial form of the human body, and the like assertions, as the Cardinal of Cambrai himself admits) (WA 6.509). The Cardinal is Pierre d’Ailly; the nominalist critique of Aristotle carries over into this key document of the Reformation. “Cur non explosa ista curiositate, in uerbis Christi simpliciter haeremus, parati ignorare, quicquid ibi fiat, contentique uerum corpus Christi uirtute uerborum illic adesse? An est necesse, modos operationis diuinae omnino comprehendere?” (Why do we not put aside such curiosity, and cling simply to the word of Christ, willing to remain in ignorance of what here takes place, and content with this, that the real body of Christ is present by virtue of the words? Or is it necessary to comprehend the manner of the divine working in every detail?) (WA 6.510). Here the rhetoric of negative theology no longer takes us beyond the empirical into self-abasing contemplation of the inscrutable depths of God. Rather it serves to bring us right back to the empirical, and to focus all our attention on the concrete word of Christ, stamped and sealed with the gift of his body.

Luther says that Holy Orders is not a sacrament, since “nullam habet promissionem gratiae” (WA 6.560). The lack of scriptural warrant, also, obliges us to see the rite as a human custom rather than a divine institution. “Conandumque sit, ut certa et pura nobis sint omnia, clarisque scripturis fermata, quae pro articulis fidei iactamus” (We ought to see to it that every article of faith of which we boast be certain, pure, and based on clear passages of Scripture). (WA 6.560). To reduce the articles of faith to what is pure, clear, certain, and evidently found in Scripture, is a form of linguistic therapy. Non-scriptural doctrines establish themselves through tortured ingenuity in the over-interpretation of scriptural texts, the creation of neologisms, and the construction of a bad, hybridized metaphysical sub-discourse that distracts from the main scriptural path of theological thought. The Church invents new languages to clothe the supplementary doctrines that it adds to those warranted by Scripture. “Nec habet Ecclesia potestatem, novas promissiones gratiae divinas statuere, sicut quidam garriunt, quod non minoris sit autoritatis, quicquid ab Ecclesia, quam quod a deo statuitur, cum regatur spiritu sancto. Ecclesia enim nascitur verbo promissionis per fidem, eodemque alitur et servatur. Hoc est, ipsa per promissiones dei constituitur, non promissio dei per ipsam” (The Church has no power to make new divine promises, as some rant, who hold that what is decreed by the Church is of no less authority than what is decreed by God, since the Church is under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But the Church owes its life to the word of promise through faith, and is nourished and preserved by this same word. That is to say, the promises of God make the Church, not the Church the promise of God) (WA 6.560). As the community of those who have received the promises in faith, the Church is radically subordinate to the promises, as the elements are to the word of promise in Baptism and the Eucharist. The Church is not seen as a divine mystery but as a finite, created reality, infinitely below the divine Word: “Verbum enim Dei supra Ecclesiam est incomparabiliter, in quo nihil statuere, ordinare, facere, sed tantum statui, ordinari, fieri habet, tanquam creatura” (The Word of God is incomparably superior to the Church, and in this Word the Church, being a creature, has nothing to decree, ordain or make, but only to be decreed, ordained and made) (WA 6.560-1). A two-way dependence of Church on Gospel and of Gospel on Church would mean that the Gospel promise would lose its purity and autonomy. The language of Church and theology, likewise, must subject itself to the language of the Word. It cannot aim to control and improve the free address of God in and through the biblical Word. The entire machinery of salvation is mediated by the word: “Primum vero et summum omnium, in quo omnia pendent alia, est docere verbum dei. Nam verbo docemus, verbo consecramus, verbo ligamus et solvimus, verbo baptizamus, verbo sacrificamus, per verbum de omnibus iudicamus, ut cuicunque verbum cesserimus, huic plane nihil negare possumus, quod ad sacerdotem pertinet” (What comes first and is the summit on which all else depends is to teach the word of God. For by the word we teach, by the word we consecrate, by the word we bind and loose, by the word we baptize, by the word we sacrifice, by the word we judge of all things, so that to whomever we concede the word we can deny nothing that pertains to being a priest) (De Instituendis Ministris Ecclesiae 1523, WA 13.180). This emphasis promises to make the actions of the Church transparent and self-explanatory and to do away with hidden processes that are expounded in parasitic, non-biblical discourses.

AGAINST THE LANGUAGE OF METAPHYSICS

From the start, Luther struggled against the language of metaphysics and sought to cleave to a scriptural language. In the early writings, the horizons of his thinking remained philosophical rather than being thoroughly defined by the encounter with the word of salvation. He uses the language of negative theology, stemming from Pseudo-Dionysius, whom he was to denounce as a blind alley in De Captivitate (WA 6.562) – though there are some earlier criticisms. God appears dialectically in the overthrow of human presumption, not primarily in the utterance of the ‘other word’ of Gospel forgiveness. A similar dialectical abstraction, centuries later, affects Karl Barth’s talk of God as the ‘totally other’ in his early writings, overcome, but perhaps even then not fully, in his richer account of the Word in the Dogmatics.

The early Luther meditates on the gulf between the way of speaking of Paul and that of the Scholastics, the modus loquendi Apostoli. He struggles against Aristotelian language in theology, and denounces it as a perversion in his Disputation against Scholastic Theology of September 4, 1517, which could just as easily have sparked off the Reformation crisis as the Ninety-five Theses on indulgences of October 31, 1517 (Lohse 1999:99). The logic of the scholastics is the chief target, but their language also irritates. “Theologus non fit nisi id fiat sine Aristotele” (One does not become a theologian unless one does so without Aristotle) (no. 44); “Totus Aristoteles ad theologiam est tenebrae ad lucem” (All of Aristotle is to theology as darkness to light) (no. 50, WA 1.226). Aristotle is again targeted, along with Scholastic misreadings of Aristotle, in the Heidelberg Disputation of April 26, 1518. The ‘folly of the preaching’ is extolled: “Qui sine periculo volet in Aristotele Philosophari, necesse est ut ante bene stultificetur in Christo” (Who would philosophize in Aristotle without peril must first be fully made foolish in Christ) (no. 29; WA 1.355). This polemic against scholastic language is a secondary theme in Luther, and is not developed as substantially as the main theme of justification (see Brecht 1985:234). It does not exclude all use of Aristotle but sets stringent conditions for it (see Dieter, 431-53).

Luther’s vision of the Eucharist, unlike Zwingli’s or Calvin’s, is as realistic, as substantial, as metaphysical as one could wish. But the ontological aspect is secondary to the word that confers on the sacrament its meaning. The word-event and the relations it establishes are not subordinated to ontological realities seen as grounding them, but are themselves the founding realities, in regard to which ontological implications or consequences are secondary and derivative. At this secondary level Luther, at least in the early writings, shows himself surprisingly appreciative of Aristotelian resources when they serve to clarify his primary message. Aquinas discusses justification as a change in the soul, with the help of categories from Aristotle’s Physics; so does Luther, though taking those categories in an Ockhamistic interpretation (see Dieter, 276-377). Luther sees the scholastics as having distorted Aristotle, and claims to understand Aristotle better than they did, in the humanist spirit of a return ad fontes. “Dubium est vehemens, An sententia Aristotelis sit apud latinos” (It is very doubtful whether the Latins have the opinion of Aristotle) (WA 1.226). That is a theme that frequently recurs in Heidegger.

The persistence of such reasoning even after 1518 (see Dieter, 345) suggests that metaphysical reasoning has a legitimate place in the texture of Lutheran thought. The overcoming of metaphysics need not mean the exclusion of all metaphysical reasoning from theology. The arguments for the existence of God, the problems of the divine attributes, of theodicy, cannot be whisked away by adopting a fideistic posture. What Luther teaches us is that such metaphysical reasonings must not be allowed to dictate the shape of revealed truth and to decide which matters are important. The metaphysical discussions pursued in most analytical philosophy of religion are in basic disharmony with the perspective of biblical faith, to which they give only cursory attention. They have not been ‘first made foolish in Christ’ as the Heidelberg Disputation urged. Their theological unrootedness, despite occasionally useful argumentative gambits, is due to a failure to deepen awareness of the concrete conditions in which sinful humans stand before God.

Medieval scholasticism had in many ways reshaped classical ontology. Trinitarian doctrine gave a prominence to relation among the ten Aristotelian categories, and the entire creation was conceived of as in relational dependence on God. Bonaventure saw the essence of the created world as relation: “relatio creaturae ad Creatorem non est accidentalis, sed essentialis” (The relation of creature to Creator is not accidental, but essential) (Hex. IV 8, quoted Schönberger, 77). The nominalists, in contrast to Aquinas, had emphasized will over intellect within the simplicity of the divine nature, making for a more dynamic and relational sense of reality. They stressed the concrete order of the universe as contingent, being dependent on a choice of the divine will that might have been other. In Luther, these metaphysical innovations cross the threshold to phenomenological eventhood, as they are sublated into the concrete situation of a person addressed by the Word. They are no longer just a general ontological structure of dependence, but an ever-actual address. Luther’s Deus semper actuosus is a present phenomenon or event, unlike the actus essendi or ipsum esse subsistens of Thomist ontology. The sighting of being as act in Aquinas, or the promotion of relation over substance, are intra-metaphysical accomplishments, but when a theology of the Word is set up over against metaphysical conceptuality, we have a new kind of Christian thinking, one that espouses the contours of the drama of salvation. I note that Heidegger is often refuted by German philosophers on the grounds that the Neo-Platonists or Aquinas had already overcome the forgetfulness of being, by discovering being in its difference from beings as the actus essendi – examples of this reception are J. B., Lotz, G. Siewerth, R. Schönberger, W. Beierwaltes. In reality, the difference between Heidegger and Aquinas is analogous to the difference between Luther and Aquinas – a difference that consists in the opening up of a phenomenological access to the reality of God or of being.

God and creation are no longer thought of in terms of causality, but in terms of the dynamic speaking of a divine word. If Christ is present to us not as a static substance but as a living address, always speaking to us anew, Christus actuosissimus. The realities of creation too are living words addressed to us by God. “The ‘Word of God” is God himself in his universal power that creates and that sustains what is created” (Meinhold, 11). Thus, “opera dei sunt verba eius” (God’s works are his words) (WA 3.152 = 55.248). God does not speak “mere grammatica vocabula, sed veras et subsistentes res… sic verba dei res sunt, non nuda vocabula” (the words of God are realities, not bare vocables) (WA 42.17). Although medieval metaphysics was often a metaphysics of act and relation rather than static substance, its vision of God and creation was primarily that of an unchanging system of causality. Now, the Aristotelian structure of the cosmos yields to a biblical structure, whose backbone is not causal ontology but the creative divine word. The promise-relation between the sinner and the God who addresses to him the word of forgiveness is not a matter of some transcendental anthropological Word-situation or existential structure as Gerhard Ebeling sometimes suggests (Bayer, 194). Luther’s concern is the actual event of hearing the word. The continuity of the life of faith is the continuity not of a structure but of a relationship with a word that is constantly heard anew whenever the Gospel is preached.
Luther’s thorough experience of the dialectic of Law and Gospel, condemnation and justification, exposed not only the futility of seeking salvation through works, but also the ungroundedness of intellectualist discourses about salvation. The deployment of Platonic and Aristotelian categories in theology from Origen to Ockham was a distorting objectification, based on an inadequate grasp of the point of departure, the event of saving faith in God's promise. Luther experienced God’s justification as ‘against all reason’, including ethical reason. ‘All Luther's invective against “reason” takes its origin from this point’ (Holl, 77). From a distance one might rationalize the justification of the godless, but from within that drama the impotence of reason is apparent.

Luther’s self-identification as a ‘theologian of the Cross’ rather than a ‘theologian of glory’ has a linguistic aspect. It implies a taste for the paradoxes of God’s glory being manifest in humiliation, his strength in weakness, his wisdom in foolishness. It implies a preference for a speech grounded in physical realities, in the weakness of the suffering body, rather than in immaculate abstractions. Down-to-earth proclamation rather than academic exposition becomes the central style of theology. Some Catholics imagine that this means that Luther has banished thought from theology; but in reality it signifies the struggle toward a thought adequate to the theme of theology, a thought carrying the stresses of the incarnational economy in its very texture. Luther is always thinking furiously, from the thick of his dramatic struggle.

In his scholastic disputations Luther focussed on doctrine and logic, but when he turns to exegesis, as in the Operationes in Psalmos (1519-21), the clash of the two theological worlds becomes a specifically linguistic battlefield. Luther shows how Aristotelian habits of speech present themselves to the commentator at every turn, preventing the biblical text from breathing and from unfolding its full sense. Again and again, he overcomes them by turning to the paradoxical language of the stultitia Christi. Luther has a fine ear for the incompatibility of biblical and metaphysical diction, and will sometimes rehearse what a scholastic would make of the text under discussion, before going on to show how startling different is the approach of an exegesis led by Scripture itself – that is, by the paradoxical dialectic Luther has found in Scripture. He discerns superficiality and frivolity in metaphysical language, as an objectifying medium that misses the brunt of the struggle of faith. Justification does not fit Aristotelian logic. It is not a quality or a habitus or a form, but a divine act that is extra nos, that places us outside ourselves. The scholastic categories create an entire way of speaking that is at odds with the existential reality of justification.

Discerning the mismatch between these categories and the lived reality of justification is not only a theological insight, nor even a prophetic one, but is also a literary insight. Overcoming these categories is not a matter of nagging about their limitations, but of creating a new, superior language, drawing on the Augustinian and, still more, the Pauline sources. The overcoming of scholastic categories by Pauline language is not only an intellectual critique but a powerful rhetorical achievement. Luther’s language gains much of its impact from the frequent recalls of the pallid and distorting scholastic language whose overcoming it enacts. The Reformation was the product in part of Luther’s ear for language, and of his impatience with a language that lacked pith or that substituted a mechanical logical clarity for the existential clarity of Scripture. He sought a language for theology proportionate to the realities with which it deals, in opposition to one that kept those realities at a safe distance and replaced their inherent structure with a flattening rationalizing scheme, externally imposed.

In addition to his vigilant critique of scholastic language, Luther also brings suspicion to bear even on the technical terms used by the Councils of the early Church. “Paulus praecepit et praecipiendi ius habuit, ut vitares prophanas vocum novitates et loquereris, ut ipse loquitur, et sacris vocum antiquitatibus inhereres... Quod si odit anima mea vocem homousion, et nolim ea uti, non ero haeriticus” (Paul commanded and had the right to command that you avoid profane novelties of vocabulary and speak as he speaks, adhering to the sacred ancient words… If my soul hates the homoousios and refuses to use it, I am not thereby a heretic) (WA 8.117,16-18,33-4). He functionalized the doctrine of Christ’s two natures in terms of a lived dialectic of salvation, in the spirit of Melanchthon’s dictum : “This is to know Christ, not to scrutinize his natures, but to know his benefits” (Loci Communes 1521). As for the person or hypostasis of Christ, he regarded it as an unhelpful abstraction, contrary to Melanchthon’s insistence on it in his commentary on Colossians. In his very critical study of Luther, Theodor Beer builds on such declarations to portray Luther’s Christology as Nestorian and as fundamentally incoherent. But the freedom of Luther’s wrestling with the language of the Fathers is a more fruitful hermeneutic of tradition than faithful recitation of formulae that have lost their salvific point. Scott H. Hendrix calls this process ‘deparentifying the Fathers’, that is, moving from a servile to a mature, dialogical relationship to them. And in fact the dust settled in positions of perfect trinitarian and Christological orthodoxy, in such confessional documents as the Book of Concord.

THE WORD-EVENT IS IRRECUPERABLE BY METAPHYSICS

“Luther claimed philosophical concepts became ‘nova vocabula’ when used theologically (WA 39 II, 94:17-26). Theology thus forms a ‘nova lingua’ over and against philosophy (WA 39 I, 231:30; 39 II, 5:32-38)” (Bielfeldt 1997:92). The irreducibility of Luther’s concern to metaphysical frameworks, and the way his voice frees itself from the shackles of Aristotelian conceptuality, anticipates the Heideggerian project of ‘overcoming metaphysics’ and of constructing a language that could not be recuperated by metaphysical categories. Heidegger’s existential treatment of discourse (Rede) in Sein und Zeit indicates an overcoming of metaphysical conceptions of language. It was only when he opened his philosophical thought to the poetic word of Holderlin, who became for him what Scripture was for Luther, that Heidegger acquired a radical sense of the language-event in which speech itself speaks, Die Sprache spricht, no longer reducible to a communicative instrument manipulated by its speakers.

This word-event at the centre of Luther’s thought does not fit into any metaphysical theory of language. Language is no longer located between the ideas in the mind, the external objects to which it refers, and the interlocutors to which it is addressed by a human subject using it as an instrument of communication. Language is an event in its own right, which creates the identity of the subject to whom it is addressed, or who assumes it in boldness of speech. This existential event-centredness of Luther’s vision is missed again and again by theologians who aim at a speculative comprehension of Christianity. It is also missed in the flat-footed commonsense metaphysics that asks about the ontological grounds in the human soul for the event of justification. The debate on justification is falsified when it forgets its existential origin and remains content with metaphysical resolutions of the points of difference between the Reformation and the Council of Trent.

Sometimes the quest to free language from metaphysics goes wrong, and instead of producing a non-metaphysical language relapses into the language of bad or primitive metaphysics. Luther’s “theological crossing of boundaries in the talk of deus absconditus” (Wabel, 221) is no doubt a case in point. God is hidden in his revelation in Christ; that is part of normal theological discourse. But Luther also talks of an absolute divine hiddenness, which lies beyond the knowledge of faith. In De Servo Arbitrio, this ultimately hidden God is hidden not from unbelief, but from believers as well, and could contradict the God revealed in the Gospel; here Luther forgot his own principle that “the cross alone is our theology” (WA 5.176,32-3; see McGrath, 165-7). “This limit-concept cannot be meaningfully thought and articulated within the theological thinking and speaking about God that is determined by the incarnation of God” (Wabel, 221). However, this is an instructive excess. Wabel says of both Luther and Wittgenstein that “in this struggle for clear expression both often enough pushed speech to its limit and thus became conscious of the limits of the thinkable” (Wabel, vii). “From the point of view of method, Luther makes the same mistake as Wittgenstein in the Tractatus: In the effort to show from within the limits imposed (by God) on speech, he goes beyond these limits” (222). The gesture toward ineffable ultimacy undermines the inner consistency of what is given to be thought and spoken. In terms of the Buddhist notion of the two truths, one could say that here the relation between the world-ensconced truth of revelation and the truth of ultimate meaning becomes a disruptive dualism. Luther conveys the shock of ultimacy, but he does not allow this to emerge from within the revealed data but rather in a leap away from these data. The effect is to evoke a Gnostic abyss, a silence beyond language, which recalls thought-forms of negative theology, medieval mysticism, and the nominalist stress on God’s potentia absoluta as opposed to his potentia ordinata.

RECENT METAPHYSICAL INTERPRETATION OF LUTHER

The entire architecture of Luther’s world of thought is bound together by word-events. Creation and redemption themselves are the utterance of a divine word. This linguistic element of theological thought tends to disappear in confessional or dogmatic summaries of Lutheranism, notably in efforts at ecumenical accommodation. The situation of the sinner believing in the words, ‘Thy sins are forgiven’ is missing, Dalferth claims, from the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. The freedom and relationality of the word, in its primacy over substance and over inner spiritual states, is incompatible with efforts to present Christianity as a systematic metaphysical doctrine. The dominance of metaphysical habits of thought is perhaps the chief reason for the tone deafness, or even total deafness, to Luther’s message that has persisted for centuries in other churches, and that continues in ecumenical dialogue carried on in a spirit of bureaucratic compromise. Alastair McGrath complained that whenever he consulted the Weimar edition of Luther’s works in Oxford’s Bodleian Library he had to cut the pages himself, a clear sign of the indifference to Luther prevailing in Anglican and Catholic circles. Even a theologian who calls herself ‘post-Christian’, Daphne Hampson, has expressed indignation at this non-reception of Luther. She rejects the irenical vision that finds complementarity rather than opposition between the ‘sapiential’ vision of Thomas Aquinas and the ‘existential’ vision of Luther. Rowan Williams has responded by pointing that ‘there is a fair amount in Catholic theology about the fact that the activating source of grace is always the free and uncreated act of God’ (Williams 2004). Indeed, this is true even of William of Ockham and nominalist theology (Vignaux, 87-91, correcting Harnack). But the insights of Luther go beyond this. If there is a tone-deafness in Catholicism to Luther’s message, it is because the deep and authentic Augustinianism of Catholic theology fails to take the extra step that would appreciate the novel twist given by Luther to the doctrine of grace, a twist most apparent in his concretization of justification as a word addressed to us. That step could be characterized as a movement from metaphysics to a post-metaphysical phenomenology.

But the doctrine of justification, in its verbal and non-metaphysical aspect, is not popular among Lutherans either. Commenting on the Fourth Congress of the Lutheran World Federation held in Helsinki 1963, Carl E. Braaten claims it showed two things : ‘(1) Some Lutherans believe that justification is existentially irrelevant to the modern generation, which presumably is asking other questions to which justification does not relate, and (2) there is a fundamental disagreement on the interpretation of justification’ (13). Justification as the free gift of forgiveness, given to a sinner, and received in faith – a faith which is itself a free gift of grace, is falsified when it is understood ‘analytically’ by Karl Holl and those who follow him, that is, when it is understood not as declaring the sinner righteous but as registering a transformation of the sinner. Braaten finds the origins of this in Melanchthon, who in the later editions of his Loci Communes qualified his earlier sense of the gratuitous imputation of righteousness and began to fret about the conditions of justification, making the non-resistance of the will a human contribution to the process, so that justification became something to be attained rather than something granted before a human response to it. ‘We have no reason to expect that the doctrine of justification with its three “alones” [sola fide, sola gratia, sola scriptura or solus Christus] will ever become popular in the church. It is a critical principle, always arising as a matter of prophetic protest against every vainglorious attempt to storm the gates of heaven’ (Braaten, 17).

Luther seeks to overcome the calm objectivity of the sapiential vision, by recalling it to its existential origins. A Lutheran sapiential vision of creation and salvation history would hang on the heard Word of God, and could not take form autonomously. Luther’s criticism of particular Thomistic theses is of minor significance besides the conversion of fundamental attitude that he demands of theology (see Root 2004). There is a fear even today of letting the voice of Luther resound. Instead, we pretend to have grasped and integrated his message. But perhaps Luther’s theology is intrinsically something that cannot be grasped and integrated. For it is the enactment of a series of encounters with the divine word, an open-ended drama, not to be mapped and synthesized in a series of tidy theses. We are always decentred by the divine word, thrown into confusion when it condemns, surprised and overjoyed when it forgives. Luther reminds theology that its theme is outside it, in the freedom of God’s word, which is always actualized in new ways by the Spirit. Doctrines of justification, of Law and Gospel, of sacramentology and ecclesiology, serve merely to keep the space clear for the encounter with the divine word in the full range of its impact on us and on the world. Lutherans who tie the spoken word of the Gospel tightly to the written word could be seen as trying to bring the existential force and openness of Luther’s preaching under metaphysical control. Fundamentalism itself can be viewed as a kind of metaphysics subordinating the living word to the rigid letter; one might call it as form of grammatocentrism.

One reason that Lutheran theologians reach after metaphysics is that the theological vision of Luther has come to seem insufferably narrow. Jörg Baur, expressing fatigue with the endless discussions of grace and justification, sees Luther as basically concerned with ontology, and places him in the history of modern thought culminating in Hegel (Baur, 13-28; harshly criticized in Maaser, 157-60). No doubt Luther’s shaking up of the metaphysical objectifications of the medieval world had immense ontological implications, which would be registered in German Idealism and in phenomenology centuries later. But ontology is not a primary concern of Luther’s thought. On a broader front, the concern with sin and justification seems remote from the true needs of modern humanity, and so it is sublated into a wider metaphysical quest for meaning. As Brecht observes, ‘Faith in the gospel, which proclaims nothing but the reconciling and justifying Christ, forms the new and enduring center of his theology. Today this may be regarded as annoyingly monolithic and unmodern, since here he speaks primarily not about man, but about Christ, and it does in fact present a very serious question for contemporary heirs of Luther’ (1985:230).

The Finnish school is the chief bulwark of a metaphysicizing interpretation of Luther. Their website presents it as follows:

The real presence of Christ in the believer is seen as the core of Luther's theology and a central feature (perhaps even ‘the’ central feature) of his doctrine of justification. The idea of this real presence becomes connected with an ‘ontological’ understanding of theology. Whether this means a philosophical (e.g. relational) metaphysics, a theological (e.g. eschatological) ontology of the Word, or simply an affirmation of the view that Christian message deals with the concrete created reality, remains to be discussed… We claim that the post-Enlightenment Luther research has been seriously burdened by confessional and philosophical preconditions, among which the overall hostility to ‘ontological’ issues is one of the most important ones. (http://www.helsinki.fi/~risaarin/luther.html#overw)

Following Andreas Osiander, they stress a real ontic presence of Christ in the believer. ‘The imputation of righteousness depends upon the inhabitation of Christ, and the inhabitation of Christ depends upon that imputation of righteousness’ (Bielfeldt 1997:94). If the imputation of righteousness depends on a logically prior reality, we have an ‘analytical’ account of justification; but the talk of a two-way dependence suggests that what is being stressed is simply the inseparability of justification and sanctification (which is here described as deification). The search for an ontological foundation to justification is likely to undermine the sense of it a gift that is extra nos, and that transfers us to a new mode of being.

DOES LUTHER STILL SPEAK TO US?

The objectivity and authority of Luther’s discovery is difficult for us to estimate in our postmodern context, in which we are likely to think of sin as a topic now decentered or recontextualised by the supervening question of meaning. Are we still today capable of finding our way into the situation Luther describes and of settling in it as the essential Christian mode of existence? Hearing the word of gracious absolution, and accepting it as the unsurpassable horizon of the life of faith, no longer seems to be the key experience of many Christians, Lutherans included. Faith becomes more a question of spiritual questing, interreligious dialogue, trust in the cosmos and ecological awareness, and when the language of justification by the word embraced in faith is stretched to cover such topics it loses all contour. The focus on sin and justification in Reformation theology may seem a luxury and a distorted emphasis. The messages of Paul, Augustine and Luther may come to appear as outdated ‘technologies of salvation’, provisional attempts at clarity within a Christian project that has been irreducibly pluralistic from the start, and marked by an epochal and cultural heterogeneity – or incommensurability – that foils synthesis. While such a pluralistic vision would dedramatize the stark confessional oppositions of the sixteenth century, it should ideally free us to be open in a new way to the freshness and power of Luther’s witness, rather than creating a blasé levelling of alternative viewpoints.

Yet though we may dislike Luther’s picture of sin as something we can never cast off in this life, we can hardly deny the moral realism of one of Luther’s earliest statements: human beings find it easy to choose evil, difficult to choose good. “Beati enim necessario eligunt bonum et impossibiliter malum. Miseri autem impossibiliter bonum et necessario malum. Sed, nos faciliter malum et difficulter bonum” (The blessed necessarily choose good and cannot possibly choose evil. The damned cannot possibly choose good and necessarily choose evil. For our part, we easily choose evil and choose good only with difficulty). (WA 9.71).

The process by which we are reconciled to God is already grasped under a plurality of models in the New Testament. The pictures given by Paul, the Synoptics, the deutero-Pauline letters, Hebrews, the Pastorals, John. Luther’s clarification of the biblical event is not the definitive focussing of what the various accounts aimed at. Rather it is a modern construction, in response to the particular problems of a community whose image of God had become clouded by paralysing fear and uncertainty. Today what most stands in the way of a firm and confident relation to God is not this moral confusion but the remoteness of the very notion of God; a clarification of the Gospel that could overcome this, in our changed epistemological context, would be something quite different from Luther's vision. Augustine and Luther were liberating in their day, but now their message seems couched in all too predictable terms, within a framework that we would question at every point. We do not receive their teaching as the definitive gospel of grace, but only as a powerful variation, the characteristically Augustinian or Lutheran one, on the gospel themes. Even Paul and John have to be received as one form of witness among many, if their words are to resonate freely in the complex pluralistic awareness of today. A preaching of grace adjusted to present conditions would be aware of its own provisional status, as an adroit actualization of some themes from the traditional repertory. Awareness of the imponderable degree to which our idea of God is a human projection forces us to renounce the attempt at permanent definition of the human-divine relationship and to be content with a language that, despite its metaphorical texture, can hold water for the here and now.

“An adequate reception of Luther in modern times cannot be a Luther repristination; rather it implies a transformation of reformation theology” (Hofmann, 4). As Barth observed, ‘The situation of the Church, which forms the space for dogmatic work, is not always the same, but imposes on this work particular conditions for different times’ (KD I/1.25). In the medieval world, wrestling with the problem of sin and salvation by inadequate strategies of outer penance and inner piety, Luther’s discovery of the Gospel word, ‘Thy sins are forgiven’, was a tremendous liberation and clarification. The effort to transform Luther’s central doctrine risks losing its contours, either through pressing it into a metaphysical scheme, or reducing it to an existential attitude. The core event of the sinner’s hearing of Christ’s word of forgiveness has to be kept at the centre of attention. The wider social and political implications of this word, as a basis for mutual reconciliation, can then be unfolded.

Seeing Luther as a theologian of the Word rather than confining his thought to the sole issue of justification, one can rescue his thought from the cul de sac into which an obsession with justification threatens to lead it. Junghans proposes that Luther’s grasp of the word is the point of departure of his theology, which led to his new understanding of the righteousness of God. ‘He was led by the will to grasp the content of the word of Holy Scripture and to set aside the conceptuality of scholastic theology. And that the God who acts through his word confers rather than demands righteousness with the help of this word, is an integral part of this doctrine of the word. Thus the doctrine of justification would be only a part of Luther’s theology of the word, like the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms’ (287).

Iwand urges us to think of the Word of God ‘beyond Law and Gospel’ as a divine force breaking into the world and overcoming the powers that hold the world in bondage. It is the eschatological presence of God himself, conquering not only sin but death. “Ein Wörtlein kann ihn fällen”, wrote Luther in the hymn “Ein feste Burg” – a little word can bring down the Prince of this World. This vision gives the Christian strength and certitude in face not only of sin, guilt, and the bondage of the will, but in face of death, wars and natural disasters. Taken thus, Luther’s writings become an apparatus for a renewed hearing of the divine word in our time, if we can shake off the must of old quarrels and pursue with new courage Luther’s strategies of exposure to the word as it condemns sin, raises up the sinner to new life, and inaugurates the triumph of God’s Kingdom.

REFERENCES

I give page references to the Weimar Edition of Luther (WA), but for the text I have generally drawn on secondary literature and on the editions I have had to hand: Otto Clemen, Luthers Werke in Auswahl (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1959-66), and Hans-Ulrich Delius, Martin Luther Studienausgabe (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1987).

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