1 / 36

Attempts at Internal Reform

Attempts at Internal Reform. Recommended source: Earle E. Cairns, Christianity Through the Centuries. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996. The Failure of the Clergy.

viveca
Télécharger la présentation

Attempts at Internal Reform

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Attempts at Internal Reform Recommended source: Earle E. Cairns, Christianity Through the Centuries. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.

  2. The Failure of the Clergy • Between 1309 and 1439, the hierarchical organization, with its demands for celibacy and absolute obedience to the pope, and the feudalization of the Roman church led to a decline in clerical morals. • Many priests took concubines or indulged in illicit love affairs. • Others, especially during the Renaissance, enjoyed luxurious living.

  3. The Babylonian Captivity • Clement V, a Frenchmen chosen as pope in 1305, was weak, of doubtful morality and dominated by strong French kings. • He moved to Avignon, France in 1309. • Catherine of Siena (1347-80) strongly urged Gregory XI to return to Rome to restore and regain prestige for the papacy as an independent international authority. • Early in 1377, he ended the “Babylonian Captivity.”

  4. The Great Schism • Urban VI was elected following Gregory XI. • His bad temper and arrogant manner led to the election of Clement VII (1378). • Clement moved back to Avignon. • Both men claimed to be pope. • Northern Italy, Germany, Scandinavia and England followed the Roman pope. • France, Spain, Scotland and southern Italy followed the pope at Avignon.

  5. Papal Taxation • Supporting two papal courts became an onerous burden. • Income came from papal estates; tithes, annates (payment of 1st year’s salary by church official); the right of purveyance (pope’s travel expenses in one’s area); the right of spoil (monies of deceased upper clergy); Peter’s pence (paid annually by laity in many lands); the income from vacant offices; and numerous fees.

  6. The Rise of National States • The king and middle class cooperated. • The king and his national army gave security which allowed the middle class to carry on business in safety. • The middle class gave money so the king could run the state. • This resulted in a strong centralized nation-state able to defy the pope and make the church subject to national interests.

  7. The Mystics • Scholasticism contributed to the rise of mysticism because it emphasized reason at the expense of man’s emotional nature. • Nominalism, which denied the real existence of universals, led to an emphasis on the individual as the source of reality and on experience as the way to gain knowledge. • They were also a reaction to troubled times arising from things like the Black Death (1348-49).

  8. Mysticism • Latin mystics emphasized mysticism as a personal emotional experience of Christ. • Catherine of Siena fearlessly denounced clerical evils. • Teutonic mystics stressed a more philosophical approach to God, sometimes leading to pantheism.

  9. Mysticism • Mysticism entered the Dominican order, likely through Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260-1327). • He believed only the divine was real and taught a fusion of the human essence with the divine during an ecstatic experience. • He emphasized the need for Christian service as the fruit of mystical union with God.

  10. Friends of God • A group of Dominicans known as the Friends of God, headquartered in the Rhine Valley, carried on Eckhart’s teaching. • John Tauler (ca. 1300-61) emphasized an inward experience of God as being much more vital to the soul’s welfare than external ceremonies. • The little mystical volume German Theology is usually associated with the group.

  11. Brethren of the Common Life • This less pantheistic and more practical group formed in the Netherlands. • John of Ruysbroeck (1293-1381), who was influenced by Eckhart, influenced the mystical movement in Holland. • He helped Gerard Groote (1340-84) to emphasize the NT in the development of the mystical experience. • A group of laymen lived in a house at Windesheim under a rule in community and devoted their lives to teaching and other practical service.

  12. Brethren of the Common Life • Like the Friends of God, the Brethren of the Common Life emphasized the education of young people and built large, excellent schools. • The Imitation of Christ is associated with the name Tomas a Kempis (1380-1471). • It reflects a more practical emphasis. • It renounces the world and asserts the need of a positive love for Christ and service for him in humble practical ways.

  13. Developments in England • English people resented sending money to a pope in Avignon, France. • The royal and middle class resented money lost to the English treasury. • Statute of Provisors (1351) banned appointment by the pope of clergymen to offices in the Roman church in England. • Statute of Praemunire (1353) forbade the practice of taking cases concerning clergymen out of the English courts for trial in papal court. • Payment of the annual tribute of 1,000 Marks, which was started by John, was stopped by Parliament.

  14. John Wycliffe • Studied and taught at Oxford. • Until 1378, he wanted to reform the Roman church by elimination of immoral clergymen and stripping it of property, which he felt was the root of corruption. • In Of Civil Dominion (1376) he asserted a moral basis for ecclesiastical leadership. • God gave the use and possession of property, but not the ownership, to church leaders as a trust to be used for His glory.

  15. John Wycliffe • Failure on the part of ecclesiastics to fulfill their proper functions was a sufficient reason for the civil authority to take the property from them and to give it to someone who would serve God acceptably. • John of Gaunt championed Wycliffe so the Church of Rome did not dare touch him. • Disgusted with the Captivity and the schism, he attacked the authority of the pope in 1379 by insisting in writing that Christ and not the pope was the head of the church.

  16. John Wycliffe • He asserted the Bible instead of the church was the sole authority for the believer and the church should model itself after the NT pattern. • Wycliffe made the Bible available to the people in their own tongue. • Complete NT manuscript in English by 1382 • Nicholas of Hereford completed the translation of most of the OT in 1384.

  17. John Hus • Students from Bohemia came to England to study when Anne of Bohemia married Richard II. • John Hus read and adopted Wycliffe’s ideas upon their return. • He proposed to reform the church in Bohemia along lines similar to Wycliffe. • He was ordered to go to the Council of Constance under a safe-conduct from the emperor. • Hus refused to recant and was burned at the stake, but his book De Ecclesia (1413) lived on.

  18. Followers of John Hus • The Taborites, the more radical of Hus’ followers, rejected all in the faith and practice of the Roman church that could not be found in Scripture. • The Utraquists took the position that only that which the Bible actually forbade should be eliminated and the laity should receive both bread and wine in the Mass.

  19. Followers of John Hus • Some of the Taborite group formed what was known as United Brethren (c. 1450). • The Moravian church developed out of this group in Germany. • One of the most missionary minded groups in church history. • Helped lead Wesley to the light in London.

  20. Girolamo Savonarola • In 1474, he became a Dominican in Bologna. • He began work in Florence 8 yrs. later. • After a slow beginning, he began to speak with immense popular effectiveness which was heightened by the general conviction that he was a divinely inspired prophet.

  21. Girolamo Savonarola • The French invasion of 1494 led to a popular revolution against the Medici and Savonarola became the real ruler in Florence. • He sought to transform it into a penitential city. • A semi-monastic life was adopted by many of the inhabitants. • At the carnival season of 1496 and 1497, masks, indecent books and pictures were burned.

  22. Girolamo Savonarola • He denounced the evil character of Pope Alexander VI. • The pope excommunicated him and demanded he be punished, but his friends were able to shield him for a time. • In April, 1498, the fickle populace turned against him and he was arrested, cruelly tortured, hanged and his body burned by the city government (Williston Walker, p. 285).

  23. The Great Schism of 1378 • In 1378, Urban VI and Clement VII each claimed to be the legitimate successor to Peter, which resulted in the Great Schism. • Europe began to be split ecclesiastically and politically. • Both men had been chosen by the college of cardinals.

  24. Proposing a Council • Leading theologians of the University of Paris proposed a council of the Roman Catholic church should decide the matter. • Marsilius of Padua (ca. 1275-1342) and John of Jandun set forth a rationalization for reform through a council in Defensor Pacis (1324). • They supported Louis of Bavaria against the pope.

  25. Proposing a Council • Marilius believed the people in a state and Christians in the church were the repository of sovereignty and they could through representative bodies elect the emperor and the pope but the emperor was over the pope. • The church in general council guided by the New Testament alone could proclaim dogma and appoint its officials.

  26. The Council of Pisa (1409) • The council was called to end the schism in the leadership of the Roman church, to reform the church from within and put down heresy. • Benedict XIII was safely in control of Avignon and Gregory XII held the papal chair in Rome. • The council, called by the cardinals, stated that the cardinals had the authority to call it and that it was competent even to call the popes to account for the Great Schism.

  27. The Council of Pisa (1409) • It deposed both Benedict XIII and Gregory XII and appointed as rightful pope the man who became Alexander V. • The other two refused to step down. • John XXIII was elected when Alexander died.

  28. The Council of Constance(1414-18) • Called by Sigismund, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and John XXIII to end the Great Schism, end heresy and reform the church in “head and members.” • To frustrate John’s attempt to control the council, over 350 high officials agreed to vote as national groups of clergymen.

  29. The Council of Constance(1414-18) • Each national group was allotted one vote and a unanimous vote of the five nations represented was necessary for binding action by the council. • The council declared its legality and its right to supreme authority in the Roman church. • This decree which substituted conciliar control of the Church of Rome for papal absolution was given the title Sacrosanct.

  30. The Council of Constance(1414-18) • Gregory XII resigned and, after some negotiation, both Benedict XIII and John XXIII were deposed by 1415. • Martin V was elected by the council as the new pope. • They dealt with the problem of heresy by condemning the ideas of Wycliffe and burning Hus at the stake.

  31. The Council of Constance(1414-18) • A decree of the council, called Frequens, provided for the meeting of general councils at stated times in the future to keep order in the Roman church (after 5 years, after 7 years and then once a decade). • They would deal with the problems of schism, heresy and reform.

  32. The Councils of Basel and Ferrar/Florence (1431-49) • Unrest in Bohemia after the martyrdom of Hus and the need for continued reform brought about the Council of Basil (1431-49). • Eugenius IV was deposed by the council in 1439, just one year after the rival council, which he had called, met at Ferrara. • Because of the plague, the rival council was moved to Florence in 1439.

  33. The Councils of Basel and Ferrar/Florence (1431-49) • The Council of Florence made an unsuccessful attempt to reunite the Greek and Roman Catholic churches. • Unrest in Bohemia after the martyrdom of Hus and the need for continued reform brought about the Council of Basil (1431-49). • Eugenius IV was deposed by the council in 1439, just one year after the rival council, which he had called, met at Ferrara.

  34. The Councils of Basel and Ferrar/Florence (1431-49) • Because of the plague, the rival council was moved to Florence in 1439. • The Council of Florence made an unsuccessful attempt to reunite the Greek and Roman Catholic churches. • They declared the seven sacraments to be accepted by the Roman church. • This was promulgated by Eugenius IV in a papal bull in 1439.

  35. The Councils of Basel and Ferrar/Florence (1431-49) • The Council of Basel acknowledged defeat by dissolving in 1449. • The papacy thus reverted to the despotism it had followed for centuries. • Pius II in a papal bull entitled Execrabilis (1460) condemned any appeals to future general councils.

  36. The Councils of Basel and Ferrar/Florence (1431-49) • The French clergy concurred with the French ruler in the proclamation of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges in 1438, which made the French church independent of the pope, but which in turn put it under the power of the state. • The reforming council had saved the church from the disorder of the Great Schism. • The lack of success in securing effective reform destroyed the last chance of reform of the Roman Catholic church from within. • The Protestant Reformation became inevitable.

More Related