Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Monday, August 23, 2010

Luther Was Not a Monk: Here I Walk, 23 Aug


Luther Was Not a Monk

 Here I Walk

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Luther Was Not a Monk



The decid­edly urban char­ac­ter of Erfurt meant another impor­tant thing for our story: the pres­ence of fri­ars. Luther was not a monk, prop­erly speak­ing, but a friar or bet­ter a her­mit of Saint Augus­tine. He’s respon­si­ble for this error, as he fre­quently referred to him­self as a monk. But he was a friar nonethe­less and shared more with the Mid­dle Ages’ new form of reli­gious life defined by the Domini­cans and Fran­cis­cans than he did with the true clois­tered monks of the Bene­dic­tine Rule.

For var­i­ous rea­sons, mete­o­ro­log­i­cal and tech­no­log­i­cal, the pop­u­la­tion of Europe exploded after 1050, and an agri­cul­tural sur­plus fed the growth of urban life. Fri­ars were made to order for this new envi­ron­ment and the chal­lenges it placed upon the faith of the pop­u­lace at large. Unlike their landed, Bene­dic­tine brethren, who were ded­i­cated to ora et lab­ora (prayer and work) within the con­fines of a monastery (and its often vast estates), urban fri­ars worked out­side their quar­ters in the cities doing ser­vice and teach­ing. Many were preachers—an art not often prac­ticed by parish priests—or cat­e­chists, while oth­ers taught in the rapidly grow­ing uni­ver­sity sys­tem. Still oth­ers did works of charity.

Fri­ars were not allowed, at least ini­tially, to own property—the tra­di­tional sup­port for monas­tic exis­tence. Because of this stip­u­la­tion of strict poverty, they were called men­di­cant or “beg­ging orders.” This was a mat­ter of some divi­sive­ness. Luther’s own pri­ory had accu­mu­lated quite large hold­ings from alms and bequests. He and his broth­ers said many masses in pay­ment for these gifts. Indi­vid­ual fri­ars, though, were for­bid­den possessions.

Because of its name you may be tempted to think that the Augus­tin­ian order was a very old one, but it wasn’t. The Order of Augus­tin­ian Her­mits can be traced only to 1244 (while St. Augus­tine him­self lived from 354–430), when a loose group of reform-minded reli­gious banded together under the so-called rule of St. Augustine—a set of pre­cepts laid out by the church father him­self in the fourth century.

In Erfurt, the her­mits prayed the hours, stud­ied, taught in the Uni­ver­sity, preached in local churches, heard con­fes­sion, and said mass. It was a busy life, full of reli­gious respon­si­bil­i­ties and not so full of com­forts. The day began the mid­dle of the night, with matins; then there was 6 a.m. prime, 9 a.m. terce, sexte at 12 noon, and after the noon­day meal and rest the 3 p.m. nones, 6 p.m. ves­pers, and at last com­pline just before bed. And mass some­time before mid­day. Miss­ing any ser­vice required a good excuse and had to be com­pen­sated for. After he moved to Wit­ten­berg and assumed the duties of a pro­fes­sor, Luther would have had exemp­tions from cer­tain hours. He kept care­ful track of what he had missed, though, and by the time he finally stopped pray­ing the canon­i­cal hours alto­gether in 1520 he had accu­mu­lated over three months of prayer debt.

The later Luther had lit­tle good to say about monas­ti­cism. But he only stopped wear­ing his cowl in 1523 and was ever loathe to give up the mass. Dur­ing his years in the clois­ter, he would have recited three psalms at every office (which means that it he prayed the Psalms through nearly once a week). It was monas­ti­cism that gave him the Bible.

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