Tusculum Theologian-in Residence lecture series continued on Tuesday, Feb. 13, with the topic of “Luther and the Papacy.” This session is the second of two that considers Luther’s struggle to define the nature of religious authority.
The series, sponsored by Tusculum with funding from Ron Smith, features lectures by Dr. Joel Van Amberg, professor of history at Tusculum. The title of the lecture series is, “The Historical Luther: Tracing the Development of Martin Luther’s Central Reformation Views.”
The 2018 Theologian-in-Residence series will join with people around the world in commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation (1517-2017).
According to Dr. Van Amberg, there were practical limitations on papal authority, but at the level of principle, the Middle Ages saw vigorous debate over the authority of the Pope. “First theorists disagreed on the ultimate source of the Pope’s power. While most canon lawyers believed that the Pope’s authority came directly from God, others held that it derived from the community of all Christians,” he told the audience.
In addition, he said, canon lawyers disagreed whether the pope shared authority with other church officials or exercised his rule alone. Some held that authority inhered not in the pope alone, but the pope and the cardinals or the general council. Others held that the Pope was above all human law, that he had absolute authority, possessing all the powers of Christ on earth, even the power to dispense with the precepts of the Bible, as long as he did not contravene an article of faith.
Thirdly, he added, canon lawyers disagreed on whether and how a wicked Pope might be disciplined by the Church. There was a general consensus that the pope was immune from human judgments unless he should deviate from the faith.
“We should remember this diversity of opinion in the Middle Ages on the powers of the Pope. It will help us understand how Luther was able for so long to cling to the view that his demand that the Pope be brought to account was not an attack on the church,” said Dr. Van Amberg.
The papacy became aware of the Luther affair by early 1518. During 1518 the Imperial German Diet was meeting in the city of Augsburg. In April 1518 Pope Leo X designated Cardinal Cajetan to act as papal legate there and empowered him to resolve the situation. When Luther began a series of meetings with Cajetan on Oct 7, 1518, Luther was disappointed that Cajetan was not willing to engage in an academic debate. After a series of meetings, Luther escaped out of a back gate in the Augsburg city walls and rode off into the darkness.
He continued, Cajetan’s position hardened, and by the end of October1518, he was demanding that Frederick the Wise turn over Luther for trial in Rome, or expel him. By early December, 1518 Frederick the Wise wrote Cajetan refusing to turn Luther over. Frederick had determined to take his stand with his troublesome but now famous university professor. For the moment, at least, Luther was safe.
“The issue had moved on to the university level. The judgment of university theology faculty regarding the heresy of someone’s views was an important element of any heresy trial. The important theology faculties of Cologne and Louvain condemned Luther’s views as heretical. The pendulum now swung against Luther.”
On Dec. 10, 1530 the last day granted for Martin Luther to respond to the summons, Luther, together with a flock of students, in an act of defiance, burned the papal bull in a bonfire.
On January 3, 1521 Martin Luther was formally excommunicated for heresy by the Church. However, Dr. Van Amberg said, to ensure that the secular punishment was carried out, the Church needed the German government to agree to execute the sentence. “For that to happen, it had to concede to the meeting at the Diet of Worms.”
Luther arrived in Worms on April 16 and met twice with the Pope’s representative in the presence of the Emperor and the chief princes of the empire. Pressed to renounce his views, he made his famous “Here I stand” speech. Soon afterwards that the final pieces against Luther fell into place. On May 8, Charles placed Luther under the Imperial Ban, and on May 26 he published the Edict of Worms.
“Luther was now condemned by the German government for heresy. He was an outlaw, and would remain so for the rest of his life, liable, should he leave his safe haven of Electoral Saxony, to be arrested and packed off for execution.”
According to Dr. Van Amberg, Luther insisted that in the controversy over the 95 Theses he never intended to make the controversy over papal power. By rejecting the power of the Pope over souls in purgatory Luther did not intend to attack the traditional prerogatives of the papacy. Instead, he was only rejecting the innovations of certain theologians.
Luther’s earliest Catholic opponents universally saw things differently. They largely shunted the indulgence issue aside, and took aim at Luther’s assault on papal power. This caused Luther reevaluate his position on the nature of the authority of the papacy.
When Luther met Cardinal Cajetan in Augsburg, he met a fierce defender of papal authority. Cajetan held that the Pope ruled by divine right, and that his decrees were to be considered without error. Not surprisingly Cajetan did not even want to talk about indulgences per se, but rather about Luther’s view of papal authority. He produced a papal decree from 1343 that
Involved the Pope’s ability to issue indulgences, and demanded to know Luther’s response. Luther was forced to admit that he considered the Pope’s decree to be wrong.
Meanwhile, Eck zeroed in on a statement Luther made that the Roman church, that the Pope, was not the head of the whole Christian church in the 6th century. Luther was thinking of the churches of the Greek East. Eck responded that the Pope was always the head of all Churches all over the world, whether they recognized it or not, because he was the head of the Church of Jesus Christ by divine right, as the successor of St. Peter.
Again, Luther was forced by his opponents to clarify his position. And he concluded that the Pope was only head of the church by human right, like a king might be the head of a country, and this only over the Western churches that recognize his authority, said Dr. Van Amberg, but then he went further.
“What began as a nagging suspicion, then became a private conviction, would eventually break forth in a public declaration: The Pope was that diabolic sign of the last days prophesied in the book of Revelation. Yes, the Pope was the Antichrist himself.”
He told the group, Luther participated fully in the apocalyptic strain of the later Middle Ages. Luther did not believe that the Reformation he had unleashed was going to inaugurate an enlightened age, where true religion would emerge victorious and create a world of peace, harmony, and Christian piety. Rather he believed that God and set free the gospel at the end of the age to provoke a final confrontation with his old enemy, Satan.”
On October 11, after much waiting, the bull of excommunication against Luther finally arrived in Wittenberg. According to Dr. Van Amberg, Luther was freed now to make his break complete, as the title of his book published the next month suggests, “Against the Bull of the Antichrist”. And Luther would not look back. Over the years, his position would harden, if such a thing were possible. Later in life he would work hard to communicate this understanding of the Pope as the Antichrist to the next generation.
He continued, “There is a broadening strain as well that emerges out of Luther’s struggle with the papacy. This strain offers a different way to approach Luther’s understanding of what constitutes the church. The church for Luther cannot be a building; it cannot be a human institution; it certainly cannot be a hierarchy of church leaders-popes, cardinals, bishops, priests.”
The human institution of the church, with its buildings, and its institutions and its rulers had cut him off, and he them, having revealed themselves, in Luther’s mind, to be the agents of the devil. For Luther, the church was only to be seen by faith because it was invisible – the universal communion of the saints across the world.
The next session will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 20, and is titled, “Luther and Justification by Faith.” The February Theologian-in-Residence lectures will take place on each Tuesday of the month – Feb. 6, 13, 20 and 27. Each lecture session will begin at 10 a.m. in the Chalmers Conference Center in the Niswonger Commons. The sessions typically end around noon, with lunch in Tusculum’s cafeteria following the conclusion of the lecture. There is no admission fee to attend the lectures or the luncheon.
Although the series has no admission fee, reservations are required. For more information or to make a reservation for the series, please call 423.636.7303 or email bsell@tusculum.edu.