Enjoy the snow, AG. There's nothing so pretty as new snow in the morning.
Enjoy the snow, AG. There's nothing so pretty as new snow in the morning.
Martin Chemnitz, a Lutheran theologian of some note wrote of something he referred to as sedes doctrina, i.e., doctrine must have a seat, a Scriptural seat. In my view, this really is not very easy to argue against. The argument that is advanced against it is an argument from authority, which is weak at best, and fallacy at worst.
So, sola Scriptura and sedes Doctrina seem to me to be mutually inclusive. Though, I think the Reformers would not have stood behind the idea that each person can interpret Scripture outside the 'mind of the church', whatever that means, since 500 years prior to the Reformers, the Church had already been split. IOW, Calvin wouldn't have accepted any interpretation of Scripture that involved a truly synergistic movement within his doctrine of Grace.
I read something the other day that posed the question, was Paul's question on the looming dissension of who belonged to Paul, and who belonged to Peter and who belonged to Apollo a foreshadowing of the 16th century split. I actually had wondered that myself.
Anyway, from a History of Christianity, by Paul Johnson:
"Erasmus, like all the reformers without exception, began by ignoring the existence of a privileged clerical class. He regarded himself as a layman, and made no distinction between men in orders, like Colet, and lay friends like Sir Thomas More.""This downgrading of the clerical role was linked to the belief that there could be no intermediaries between the Christian soul and the Scriptures. All wanted the Bible to be as widely available as possible and in vernacular translations. Access to the Bible, whether in the original or in any other tongue had never been a problem in the East (Me: no wonder Luther said that the better part of Christendom were the Greeks). In the West, the clergy had begun top assert an exclusive interpretive, indeed custodial right to the Bible as early as the ninth century; and from about 1080 there had been frequent instances of the Pope, councils and bishops forbidding not only vernacular translations but any reading at all, by laymen, of the Bible taken as a whole. In some ways this was the most scandalous aspect of the medieval Latin Church. From the Waldensians onwards, attempts to scrutinize the Bible became proof presumptive of heresy -a man or woman might burn for it alone- and, conversely, the heterodox were increasingly convinced that the Bible was incompatible with papal and clerical claims."
Moreover, according to Johnson these men (Erasmus and the Reformers) were in the tradition of Tertullian and Pelagius "who regarded it as normal and desirable that educated laymen should play their full part in the direction of the Church and declined absolutely to endorse an exclusive role for the clergy." Obviously, Pelagius wasn't wrong about everything!!! :)
Interestingly, Johnson refers to Tertullian as the first Protestant because he so vehemently rejected the advent of a clerical class. I think he saw that in the end this class would advance, in effect -regardless of the obligatory 'the Spirit goeth where it will' disclaimer- the conscription of the Holy Spirit.
If you read that piece on Plebs in the Church that I sent you, you can see the effects of this.
You know, an anti-clericalism used to run deep within the marrow of the central and southern Italian peasant, and I think that's because of a good historical memory, one that witnessed a transfer of dominance and power from patrone to priest. Italians used to (and I think still do) address their priests as Don. There are a few priests in my family: Don Mario, Don Vincenzo (rest in peace), and to the best of my knowledge, Don was also the title that you used to address a patrone, a man of property or influence. It does have sacerdotal implications when used for a priest, but I don't believe it can be said to be the equivalent of father.
More on Trent and Counter-Reformation to follow, but will leave you with these words of the council General and Augustinian, Seripando characterizing its first session: 'irresolution, ignorance, incredible stupidity.'