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

Showing posts with label James Ussher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James Ussher. Show all posts

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Oh oh! -->Another Anglican Archbishop is Calvinistic: James Ussher's Soteriology

Peter "Constantine" Leithart offers this on Mr. (Abp.) James Ussher.


Leithart, Peter. "Ussher's Soteriology."  First Things. 15 May 2014.  http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leithart/2014/05/usshers-soteriology.  Accessed 15 May 2014.


A recent addition to Oxford Studies in Historical Theology, Richard Snoddy’s Soteriology of James Ussher offers a detailed study of an important but neglected figure. If he is known at all, Ussher is known today as a chronologist. Snoddy’s is one of several recent works that shows the breadth of Ussher’s interests and work. 


Ussher stands among the “hypothetical universalists” of English theology (on which see Jonathan Moore’s English Hypothetical Universalism), who rejected the notion of limited atonement and “advocated a general atonement” while believing that “its saving benefits were applied only through the workings of saving grace” (90). Snoddy’s aim is partly to challenge a simplistic “Calvin v. the Calvinist” paradigm of Reformed historiography that would link “moderate” doctrine with anti-scholastic methods. Snoddy emphasizes that, though Ussher was a “moderate” on the extent of the atonement he followed a “scholastic” method, cutting across the categories of this school of Reformed history. 


Following Calvin and many Puritans, Ussher puts union with Christ at the center of his notion of applied soteriology (123). He insisted against Roman Catholic theology that faith was the instrument of justification, since faith was self-forgetful. But he argued that the real issue between Rome and the Protestant churches was not faith but the very possibility of justification: “the question between us and Rome, is not whether justification be by faith or no; but whether there be any such thing as justification or no. The doctrine of the Church of Rome is, that there is no such grace as this” (122) - no grace of justification, that is, defined in Protestant terms as forensic declaration based on imputation of Christ’s righteousness.


Ussher changed his mind regarding limited atonement, and he also changed his mind regarding assurance. Snoddy concludes that in his early years he believed that assurance was closely linked with the faith of justification: “So intimate is this connection . . . that one may reasonably infer that as a young man he held that assurance is of the essence of faith” (233). In later years, though, he became “a convinced experimental predestinarian, urging his hearers to make their calling and election sure, a spiritual director guiding them in reading the motions of the Spirit in their hearts” (234).


Again, this cuts through the Calvin-v.-Calvinist paradigm, according to which the question of the extent of the atonement marches in step with the question of assurance: limited atonement linked with assurance found in the evidence of grace, non-limited atonement with the view that assurance is the essence of faith.


Snoddy’s monograph is one of a growing number of books that helpfully demonstrates the complexity, variety, and subtlety of post-Reformation Reformed theology.

Saturday, January 4, 2014

4 Jan 1581: Birth of Mr. (Abp.) James Ussher


4 January 1581.  Birth of Mr. (Abp.) James Ussher
Buried in Westminster Abbey with an Anglican service. Respected by Oliver Cromwell.

Buried in Westminster Abbey with an Anglican service during, of all things, Cromwell's time and by his permission. A man who believed, as do we, in a modification of episcopacy, that is, a reduction to and governance by a presbytery. Give them a new name too, e.g. "Servant Clerks" of the Presbytery. Given their love of humility and service, they'd love the new name "Servant Clerk of the Presbytery." James Ussher is one of those few men we would call "Bishop," of course, by leave of a good stout presbytery of godly and learned Elders. Ussher, a good Reformed man too.

http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/james-ussher
James Ussher
James Ussher (or Usher) was born in Dublin on 4 January 1581, son of Arland (or Arnold) Ussher (died 1598) and Margaret, daughter of James Stanihurst. He had one brother called Ambrose. At age 13 he entered the newly founded Trinity College in Dublin and had a distinguished academic career. He was ordained by his uncle Henry Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, in 1602. In 1614 he married Phoebe (d.1654), daughter and heiress of Luke Challoner. He became a famous preacher and held the offices of Bishop of Meath, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland. During the Irish troubles of 1641 most of his property was destroyed. He later lived in London and Oxford and with his only daughter Elizabeth (wife of Sir Timothy Tyrrell) in Wales. For a short time, while the Dean was imprisoned in the Tower of London, Ussher used the Deanery at Westminster. He attended Charles I at Oxford but later also found favour with Oliver Cromwell.
Burial
It was Cromwell who ordered his burial in the chapel of St Paul in Westminster Abbey and paid the funeral expenses. It is thought that this was the only occasion at which the Anglican funeral service was read in the Abbey during the Commonwealth period. The present Irish marble gravestone, with brass lettering, was not put in until 1904 and the Latin inscription was written by Dr Gwynn (Regius Professor at Trinity College) and others. It can be translated:

"In pious memory of JAMES USSHER who was born in Dublin in 1581, entered among the first students of Trinity College, promoted to the archiepiscopal see of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, the hundredth heir of St Patrick the apostle of Ireland, historian, critic, theologian, most learned among the holy, most holy among the learned, exiled from his own in this city of Westminster, he fell asleep in Christ in 1656. He was expelled from his sacred see and country by those same seditions which went on to grant him burial in this church among the most honoured. This stone was placed by George Salmon, Provost of the same college, 1904"

His coat of arms appears at the base of the stone, surmounted by a mitre. This shows the arms of the See of Armagh impaling Ussher (azure, a chevron ermine between three batons, or).

A photograph of the stone can be purchased from Westminster Abbey Library.
Further reading:
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2004 (entries for James and Ambrose);
James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh by R. Buick Knox, Cardiff, 1967.
There is a portrait of James in the National Portrait Gallery, London www.npg.org.uk

Monday, October 8, 2012

9th Cent. Gottschalk & Primary Sources (Latin)

http://gottschalk.inrebus.com/intro.html

Gottschalk of Orbais: Life and Works

A Medieval Teacher of Twofold Predestination

Gottschalk of Orbais was the first, since the council of Orange (529), to apply so consistently the principles of later Augustine. He taught that God predestined both the elect to eternal life and the reprobate to eternal death. Several centuries would be needed until Thomas Bradwardine (c. 1290-1349), Gregory of Rimini (d. 1358) and John Wycliffe (c. 1330-1384) could voice the same ideas. Gottschalk’s life, rich in dramatic events, is an integral part of the cultural and political life of Germany, France, Italy and Croatia at the dawn of their history. However, Gottschalk of Orbais still remains in the shadow of his more famous contemporaries. Indeed, if a bibliography of the works that treat on Gottschalk is rather large, it can hardly be said that his life and teaching are thoroughly researched.
 
 
Gottschalk was born in Saxony, in the family of a count named Bernus. His date of birth is not known. However, since he was delivered as an oblate child to the monastery of Fulda together with his inheritance in Charlemagne’s lifetime (d. January 28, 814), and an oblate normally could not be younger than 10, Gottschalk was possibly born about 803. Saxony had been conquered not long before that, and Bernus seems to have been among the first counts appointed in the area.

Fulda was an important educational center, especially since 803, when Rabanus Maurus, Alcuin’s pupil, became the head of its school. Gottschalk studied Latin, the Bible, the fathers, and the basics of the classical literature. He probably did well, since they sent him to Reichenau, where Haito, Reginbert, Grimald and Wettin taught at the time. In this cloister located on a solitary island on the Untersee Gottschalk met Walafrid Strabo, with whom he came back to Fulda. There he might know deacon Lupus as well, who would later become abbot of Ferrières.

 
Some time after 822, when Rabanus was appointed abbot of Fulda, Gottschalk became a monk, but upon his return from Reichenau he declared that he had done so under compulsion, and requested to give back his inheritance donated to the monastery by his father. In June 829 a synod was convened in Mainz, which had to pronounce judgment concerning this case. Gottschalk was given back his freedom, but under condition of an oath never to request back his inheritance. The young man left Fulda, but neither his abbot nor he himself felt satisfied with the decision.

 
Gottschalk’s arguments were as follows: a monk is basically a slave, even though God’s slave. However, according to the Saxon laws a man could be bereft of his freedom only in presence of Saxon witnesses, which condition had not been fulfilled. Rabanus, on the other hand, emphasized that the property requested by Gottschalk had been inherited by Louis the Pious from his father and could not be given back to the rebellious monk. Moreover, he regarded as heretical the wish itself to be freed from the vows under such a pretext.
 

In August 829 another synod took place, presided by the emperor Louis, where the case was considered a second time. The decision is not known, but it is reasonable to suggest that Gottschalk’s liberation from the vows was confirmed, even though he never got back his inheritance.
 

Released, the young man set out for a journey. He spent some time at the monastery of Corbie in Picardy, where he met monks Gislemar and Ratramnus, with whom he would later correspond, and, possibly, Paschasius Radbertus, who in 843 would become abbot of Corbie and whose views on the Eucharist Gottschalk would attack in his treatise On the Lord’s Body and Blood. There is also no doubt that Gottschalk visited Hautvilliers, where he wrote a poetical dedication for the Ebbo Gospels, a wonderful work of the Carolingian art ordered by the archbishop of Reims to Peter, the then abbot of Hautvilliers. Under the protection of the Saxon archbishop the young man lived for some time at his residence in Reims.

 

However, even before 835, when Ebbo was deposed, under the conditions that are not fully clear Gottschalk became a monk again, having entered the monastery of Orbais, near Château-Thierry, which lays in the archdiocese of Soissons. It is hard to determine how much time he spent there. However, it is possible that he did not stay at the cloister for a long time after the deposition of his former patron. In the political context of the time Ebbo’s enemies could become dangerous for Gottschalk. Nevertheless, a Benedictine could not leave his monastery without a special dispensation of an abbot or without a specific errand. Pope Gregory the Great had decreed that a monk could break the ties with the monastery in case he was needed as a priest in a mission. As it seems that was the reason why Gottschalk was ordained by Rigbold, an interim bishop of Reims. This happened without the knowledge of Rothad, the bishop of Soissons, which later was considered as a serious infringement upon the canon law.
 

Between 835 and 840, probably with the permission of Bavo, the abbot of Orbais, and possibly at the head of a group of monks, Gottschalk made his way to the south-east of the empire, to Frioul. There he is received by the margrave Eberhard, a son-in-law to Louis the Pious. It is then that the monk from Saxony began to preach his teaching on twofold predestination on a large scale. His influence grew so wide that Rabanus Maurus, Gottschalk’s former abbot, wrote two letters: first to Noting (Rudolph of Fulda calls him a bishop of Verona), and then to Eberhard himself. In 846 Gottschalk went on a mission to Dalmatia. Even though in the Annals of St Bertin we read that the rebellious Benedictine was “shamefully ejected” from Italy (as it is often suggested, by Eberhard at Rabanus’ request), it would be hard to believe that a margrave of Frioul might allow a person denounced as a heretic to preach to the Slavs in the region for which he was personally responsible. It is more likely that the consequences of Rabanus’ involvement were felt only upon Gottschalk’s return from the Balkans. The monk at once felt compelled to make his way to Fulda.

      
Back at the monastery, he was received by the abbot Hatto who had supported Gottschalk in his conflict with Rabanus when he was a simple monk himself as yet. As for Maurus, in the meantime he had become the archbishop of Mainz and an eminent political figure. However, it did not prevent Gottschalk from speaking against him at the synod of Mainz, which took place in October 848 in presence of Louis the German and several abbots and bishops of the Western Frankish lands, including Einhard, Charlemagne’s biographer and the bishop of Seligenstadt. In the annals’ reports the case is stated very briefly: Gottschalk was flogged, compelled to swear that he would never come back into Louis’ realm, and sent to Reims, since Orbais fell under the jurisdiction of that ecclesiastical province.

      
Hincmar of Reims was eager to finish it off with the condemnation of the rebellious monk as soon as possible. This was done on a small synod, which took place at the royal villa named Quierzy in March 849, in presence of Charles the Bald. Gottschalk was accused of violation of the monastic regulations, deposed from priesthood, flogged again and compelled to throw into a fire a florilegium of scriptural and patristic quotations that he had compiled as a proof of the orthodoxy of his teaching. The sentence included a command of “eternal silence” and imprisonment at the monastery of Hautvilliers, where the condemned monk spent the rest of his life.

      
The same year Gottschalk tried to obtain a test of his orthodoxy through the ordeal, but his challenge seems to have remained without any answer. Hincmar wrote a letter, in which he explained to the monks and simple of his diocese how pernicious the ideas of the dangerous trouble-maker were.
 
 
However, the archbishop of Reims seems to have had doubts concerning the decision that was too hasty. He asked twice other bishops if he was to commune Gottschalk on Easter, and later addressed himself to the leading theologians of the period with respect to the problem of predestination. Prudentius of Troyes and Lupus of Ferrières answered that both Augustine and the Scripture taught the same way as Gottschalk. Rabanus Maurus was already about seventy and he refused to take further part in the controversy. Simultaneously, Charles the Bald asked for advice too, addressing himself to Lupus and Ratramnus. Their answers were in Gottschalk’s favor.
Only John Scot sided with Hincmar and his party. However, the arguments adduced by this mind plunged into the mystical ideas of Dionysius the Areopagite were so sophisticated that they only bewildered everybody including Hincmar, who repeatedly denied that he ever read the work or knew who was its author. Nevertheless, it was too late: some scandalous assertions of John Scot (denial of the reality of hell as well as good and evil as such) allowed the church of Lyons to intervene. At the same time Prudentius of Troyes published a refutation of John Scot’s treatise at the request of his suffragan, Wenilo of Sens.
As for Hincmar, he did not retreat. In 853, again in the presence of Charles and again at Quierzy, a large council was convened that accepted four capitula condemning the teaching on twofold predestination. It only gave occasion for new attacks from the part of Florus of Lyons in the realm of Lothair. In January 855 at Valence another council took place, where representatives of the archbishoprics of Lyons, Vienne and Arles accepted capitula, which acutely conflicted with those of Quierzy. Moreover, at the ordination of Aeneas as the bishop of Paris Prudentius of Troyes requested that Aeneas subscribed to a document, which spoke against the capitula of Quierzy.

      
Political unrest of the period postponed further discussion for some time. By 859 Hincmar grew so influential that his adversaries were ready for any compromise. The case was again considered at the conference at Langres and then at the council of Savonnières in June 859, but the final decision was not made because of the pertinacity of Hincmar’s party. The strife was ended by a conciliatory and a rather vague document accepted at the council of Tusey in October 860, which in fact meant that Hincmar had no more adversaries who would be ready to contradict him. When in 863 Pope Nicholas I summoned the archbishop together with Gottschalk at the council of Metz, Hincmar did not consider it necessary to appear there. He wrote to the Pope that he had not received the summons in due time.

      
Gottschalk died in October 868. According to Hincmar, he refused to receive clothes from the monks who were in communion with the archbishop, walked naked and didn’t want to take baths and even wash his face and hands. Gottschalk asserted that the Son entered him and then the Father and the Holy Spirit, having scorched his beard around the mouth. He also said that God forbad him to pray about Hincmar and prophesied that the archbishop would die and he himself would occupy the chair of Reims, but would be poisoned seven years later and die himself as a martyr. These prophesies were not fulfilled, and Hincmar wrote explicitly that his prisoner was possessed by a demon.

 
As for Gottschalk’s theological works, beside the fragments, only two of his writings were known for a long time: the Shorter and the Longer Confessions. Both were several times published by the early researchers of Gottschalk’s theological heritage. The first to publish them was James Ussher (1581-1656), an Anglican archbishop of Armagh. He did not mention which manuscripts he used. Jilbert Mauguin (d. 1674), a French Jansenist, mentions that Usher had taken the text ex pervetusto codice, which codex had been delivered to him by Jacques Sirmond (1559-1651), but only for reference, not for publication (the learned Jesuit probably planned to publish the Confession in his own book). However, in a letter dated by December 10, 1630 that was addressed to S. Ward, the archbishop of Armagh wrote that he had received the texts of both confessions from Corbie, which freed him from the obligations that he assumed with respect to Sirmond.

      
Nowadays only one manuscript containing the Shorter Confession is known: it is the ms. 12292 of the National Library in Paris, fol. 2rv. It goes back to the 9th century and comes from the library of Saint Germain des Près (ms. 623, later ms. 852), to which it was brought from Corbie. However, the archbishop of Armagh did not use this manuscript: ms. 12292 does not contain the Longer Confession (no ancient copy of that text is now extant). Moreover, Ussher’s edition of the Shorter Confession contains important variant readings as compared to ms. 12292.

      
Trying to determine where the manuscript used by the first editor could go, Dom Cyrille Lambot was able to ascertain that in 1666 the archbishop’s library was passed over to the Trinity College in London, but the manuscript was not there by that time: it was acquired by James Ware (1594-1666) and later by Henry, duke of Clarendon, in whose library it was catalogued as ms. 89 in 1697. This collection was partly delivered to the British Museum (Clarendon Collection) and partly to the Bodleian Library (Rawlinson Collection), but the manuscript was not found either in London or in Oxford.

      
In 1650 both Confessions were also published by Mauguin. He took the text of the Shorter Confession from the manuscript which is known to us as BN lat. 12292. As for the Longer Confession, the editor only mentioned Ussher’s edition, but his version has important variant readings as compared to the editio princeps. Lambot suggested that Mauguin also used Sirmond’s manuscript.


The second of the extant manuscripts is the ms. 1831-1833 of the Royal Library of Brussels. It goes back to late 9th or early 10th century and contains one of Gottschalk’s Trinitarian works.
 

The most important find was made as late as in 1931, when Dom Germain Morin discovered a rich collection of Gottschalk’s theological texts in the ms. 584 in the Library of Bern. The manuscript goes back to the 9th century and came to Bern from the Bongars library. This event prompted a critical edition of Gottschalk’s works, which was effected in 1945 by Lambot.


Gottschalk’s doctrine still waits for its researchers, who have to determine its correlation both with the teaching of later Augustine and the opinions of Gottschalk’s contemporaries. The influence that the 9th century controversy over predestination exerted on the western church is not fully appreciated as yet.
 
 
However, Gottschalk’s genius, thanks to precious finds of the 20th century, begins to shine forth, which puts him on the same plane with other great Carolingians.
 

Gottschalk of Orbais: Original Writings

Works of Gottschalk in Latin

For a long time the most of the original Latin writings by Gottschalk of Orbais were believed to be definitively lost. It is only in 1931 that his theological and grammatical works were discovered by Dom G. Morin in the library of Bern. In 1945 these were published by Dom C. Lambot, but this edition did not contain Gottschalk’s poetry (scattered through three separate volumes of MGH) and his letter to Ebbo (attributed to Gottschalk by Lambot only later). Thus the Latin works of Gottschalk have never been gathered in one place. Moreover, they have never been available in any collection of the electronic texts. The aim of this page is to make available to researchers the complete works of Gottschalk in text format. Eventually it will contain his letters, poetry, confessions, theological and grammatical works as well as the fragments of his writings preserved by other authors.
 
[Explicit De trina deitate]
  • [V] [EXCERPTA DE TRINITATE]
DE PRAEDESTINATIONE
  • [VII]
  • [VIII] Testimonia evangeliorum de praedestinatione electorum sive reproborum et de sola electione electorum. Item testimonia apostoli Pauli de re praedicta
  • [IX]
  • [X]
  • [XI] Item contra illos qui adfirmant reprobos esse redemptos
  • [XII] Item testimonia de re praedicta
  • [XIII]
  • [XIV] Item de reprobis baptizatis
  • [XV]
  • [XVI]
  • [XVII] Quare filius nunc aequalis nunc minor Patre dicatur
  • [XVIII] Item de electis et reprobis
Explicit De praedestinatione

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottschalk_of_Orbais

Gottschalk of Orbais


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Gottschalk (also Godescalc, Gotteschalchus) of Orbais (c. 808 – October 30, 867?) was a Saxon theologian, monk and poet who is best known for being an early advocate of the doctrine of two-fold predestination. From his friend Walahfrid Strabo, Gottschalk also received the nickname Fulgentius, after Fulgentius the Mythographer, whom he may have studied intensively.[1]
 

Early career

Gottschalk was born near Mainz, and was given to the monastic life (oblatus) from infancy by his parents. His father was a Saxon, Count Bern or Bernius. He was trained at the monastery of Fulda, then under the abbot Hrabanus Maurus, and became the friend of Walafrid Strabo and Loup de Ferrières. In June 829, at the synod of Mainz, on the pretext that he had been unduly constrained by his abbot, he sought and obtained his liberty, withdrew first to Corbie, where he met Ratramnus, and then to the monastery of Orbais in the diocese of Soissons. There he studied St Augustine, with the result that he became an enthusiastic believer in the doctrine of absolute predestination, in one point going beyond his master — Gottschalk believing in a predestination to condemnation as well as in a predestination to salvation, while Augustine had contented himself with the doctrine of preterition as complementary to the doctrine of election.

Priesthood

Between 835 and 840 Gottschalk was ordained priest, without the knowledge of his bishop, by Rigbold, chorepiscopus of Reims. Before 840, deserting his monastery, he went to Italy, preached there his doctrine of double predestination, and entered into relations with Notting, bishop of Verona, and Eberhard, margrave of Friuli.
 
Driven from Italy through the influence of Hrabanus Maurus, now archbishop of Mainz, who wrote two violent letters to Notting and Eberhard, he travelled through Dalmatia, Pannonia and Noricum, but continued preaching and writing.
 
Gottschalk was at Trpimir I of Croatia's court between 846 and 848, and his work De Trina deitate is an important source of information for Trpimir's reign. Gottschalk was a witness to the battle between Trpimir and Byzantine strategos, probably of Dalmatia, when Trpimir was victorious.

Predestination

In October 848 he presented to the synod at Mainz at St. Alban's Abbey a profession of faith and a refutation of the ideas expressed by Hrabanus Maurus in his letter to Notting. He was convicted, however, of heresy, beaten, obliged to swear that he would never again enter the territory of Louis the German, and handed over to Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, who sent him back to his monastery at Orbais. The next year at a provincial council at Quierzy, presided over by Charles the Bald, he attempted to justify his ideas, but was again condemned as a heretic and disturber of the public peace, was degraded from the priesthood, whipped, obliged to burn his declaration of faith, and shut up in the monastery of Hautvilliers.
 
There Hincmar tried again to induce him to retract. Gottschalk however continued to defend his doctrine, writing to his friends and to the most eminent theologians in the lands of Charles the Bald and Louis the German. A great controversy resulted. Prudentius of Troyes, Wenilo of Sens, Ratramnus of Corbie, Loup de Ferrières and Florus of Lyon wrote in his favour. Hincmar wrote De praedestinatione and De una non trina deitate against his views, but gained little aid from Johannes Scotus Eriugena, whom he had called in as an authority.
 
 
The question was discussed at the councils of Quierzy (853), of Valence (855) and of Savonnières (859). Finally Pope Nicholas I took up the case, and summoned Hincmar to the council of Metz (863). Hincmar either could not or would not appear, but declared that Gottschalk might go to defend himself before the pope. Nothing came of this, however, and when Hincmar learned that Gottschalk had fallen ill, he forbade him the sacraments or burial in consecrated ground unless he would recant. This Gottschalk refused to do. He died on 30 October between 866 and 870.

Writings

Gottschalk was a vigorous and original thinker, but also of a violent temperament, incapable of discipline or moderation in his ideas as in his conduct. Of his many works we have the two professions of faith (cf. Migne, Patrologia Latina, cxxi. c. 347 et seq.), and some poems, edited by L Traube in Monumenta Germaniae historica: Poetae Latini aevi Carolini (707-738). Some fragments of his theological treatises have been preserved in the writings of Hincmar, Erigena, Ratramnus and Loup de Ferrières. Some of Gottschalk's works (including De Praedestinatione) have been newly discovered in 1931 in a library in Bern. D.C. Lambot's Oeuvres théologiques et grammaticales de Godescalc d’Orbais (1945) has good overview of Gottschalk's works.
 
From the 17th century, when the Jansenists exalted Gottschalk, much has been written on him. Two studies are F. Picavet, Les Discussions sur la liberté au temps de Gottschalk, de Raban Maur, d'Hincmar, et de Jean Scot, in Comptes rendus de l'acad. des sciences morales et politiques (Paris, 1896); and A. Freystedt, Studien zu Gottschalks Leben und Lehre, in Zeitschrsft für Kirchengeschichte (1897), vol. xviii.

References

  1. ^ Whitbread, Fulgentius the Mythographer, p. 25 (introduction); MGH Poet. II, p. 362
  • This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gottschalk". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  • Egon Bondy wrote a study on Gottschalk, published in his book Gottschalk, Kratés, Jao Li, Doslov (Gottschalk, Crates, Jao Li, Afterword; written in 1988, published by Zvláštní vydání, Brno 1991)
  • Whitbread, Leslie George (intro and tr.). Fulgentius the Mythographer: The Mythologies. The exposition of the content of Virgil according to moral philosophy. The explanation of obsolete words. On the ages of the world and of man. On the Thebaid. Columbus, 1971.

External links


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http://gottschalk.inrebus.com/transl.html

Gottschalk & A Medieval Predestination Controversy (Texts Translated From The Latin)

Edited & Translated by Victor Genke & Francis X. Gumerlock

Since 2003 Victor Genke and Francis X. Gumerlock have been working on a collection of translated primary sources on Gottschalk and the strife that he aroused. The book appeared in print in 2010 as the 47th volume of Marquette University Press Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation series:



The contents are as follows:
INTRODUCTION
PART 1: WRITINGS OF GOTTSCHALK
Reply to Rabanus Maurus
Confession of Faith at Mainz
Tome to Gislemar
Shorter Confession
Longer Confession
Answers to Various Questions
On Predestination
On Different Ways of Speaking About Redemption
Another Treatise on Predestination

PART 2: OTHER WRITINGS
Rabanus Maurus
Letter to Noting
Letter to Eberhard
Letter to Hincmar on the Council of Mainz
Hincmar of Reims
Sentence Against Gottschalk at Synod of Quierzy
Letter to the Laity of his Diocese
Letter to Amolo
Letter to Rudolph and Frotarius
Letter to Pope Nicholas
Letter to Egilo
Amolo of Lyons
Letter to Gottschalk
On Grace and Foreknowledge
Florus of Lyons
Sermon on Predestination

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Gottschalk of Orbais: Select Bibliography

Aegerter, Emmanuel. “Gottschalk et le problème de la prédestination au IXe siècle,” Revue de l’histoire des religions, 116 (1937): 187-233.

Amann, Émile. “La controverse prédestinatienne.” In Augustin Fliche and Victor Martin, eds., Histoire de l’église depuis les origines jusqu’à nos jours. Paris: Bloud and Gay, 1947, 320-44.

Bischoff, Bernhard. “Gottschalks Lied für den reichenauer Freund.” In Medium Aevum Vivum: Festschrift für Walther Bulst. Hans Robert Jauss and Dieter Schaller, eds. Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1960, 61-8.

Boller, Bernard. Gottschalk d’Orbais de Fulda à Hautvillers: une dissidence. Préface de Michel Wieviorka. Paris: Société des Écrivains, 2004.

Cappuyns, Maïeul. Jean Scot Erigène. Sa vie, son oeuvre, sa pensée. Louvain: Abbaye du Mont César, 1933.

Châtillon, F. Review of Cyrille Lambot’s Oeuvres théologiques et grammaticales de Godescalc d’Orbais. Revue du moyen âge latin 5 (1949): 255-72.

Devisse, Jean. Hincmar archevêque de Reims 845-882. 3 vols. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1975-1976.

Diem, Albrecht. “Een Verstoorder Van De ‘Ordo’: Gottschalk Van Orbais En Zijn Leer Van De Dubble Predestinatie.” In Mayke de Jong, Marie-Therese Bos, and Carine van Rijn, eds. Macht Et Gezag in De IXde Eeuw. Utrechtse Historische Cahiers 16. Hilversum: Verloren, 1995, 115-31.

Dinkler, Erich. Gottschalk der Sachse. Stuttgart: W. Kahlhammer, 1936.

Dörries, Hermann. Gottschalk, ein christlicher Zeuge der deutschen Frühzeit. Göttingen: Franz-Seldte, 1939.

Evans, Gillian R. “The Grammar of Predestination in the Ninth Century.” Journal of Theological Studies, N.S., 33.1 (1982): 134-45.

Evert, Boyd Harry. “Gottschalk of Orbais and the Debate over Predestination in the Ninth Century.” Master’s thesis. University of Dallas, 1994.

Fickermann, Norbert. “Wiedererkannt Dichtungen Gottschalks.” Revue bénédictine 44 (1932): 314-21.

Freystedt, Albert. “Der Ausgang des Prädestinationsstreites im 9 Jahrhundert.” Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie 41 (1898): 112-35.

_____. “Gottschalk, der Monch.” In Encyclopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, Vol. 7. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1889, 39-41.

_____. “Der Streit uber die göttliche Trinität im 9. Jahrhundert.” Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie 41 (1898): 392-401.

_____. “Studien zu Gottschalks Leben und Lehre.” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 18 (1897/1898): 1-22, 161-81, 529-45.

_____. “Der Synodale Kampf im Prädestinationsstreit der 9. Jahrhunderts in den Jahren 853 bis 860.” Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie 36 (1893): 447-78.
_____. “Der wissenschaftliche Kampf im Prädestinationsstreit des 9. Jahrhunderts.” Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie 36 (1893):315-68.

Ganz, David. “The Debate on Predestination.” In Gibson, Margaret T. and Nelson, Janet L. eds. Charles the Bald. Court and Kingdom, 2nd ed. Brookfield, VT: Variorum, 1990, 283-302.

Gaudard, Frédéric J. “Gottschalk moine d’Orbais; ou, le commencement de la controverse sur la prédestination au IXe siècle.” Diss. Saint-Quentin: J. Moureau, 1887.

Godet, Philippe. “Gotescale ou Gottschalk.” In Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, Vol. 6. Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1920, 53-5, 1500-2.

Günther, Max Hermann Rudolf Gerhard. “Der Mönch Gottschalk.” Deutsche Volkstum (1928): 264-7.

Gustavsson, Louise Reinecke. “Gottschalk Reconsidered: A Study of His Thought as It Bears on His Notion of Predestination.” Ph. D. diss. Yale University, 1964.

Hanko, Ronald. “Gotteschalk’s Doctrine of Double Predestination,” Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, 12.1 (1978): 31-64.

Hartmann, Wilfried. “Die Mainzer Synoden des Hrabanus Maurus.” In Kottje, Raymund and Harald Zimmerman, eds. Hrabanus Maurus. Lehrer, Abt und Bischof. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1982, 130-44.

Herding, Otto. “Über die Dichtungen Gottschalks von Fulda.” In Festschrift Paul Kluckhohn und Hermann Schneider gewidmet zu ihrem 60 Geburtstag. Tübingen: Mohr, 1948, 46-72.

Hercigonja, Eduard. Tropismena i trojezična kultura hrvatskoga srednjovjekovlja. Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 1994.

“Hincmar et le concile de Valence dans l’affaire de Godescalc.” [No author listed] Analecta juris pontificalis 7e serie, 61e liv. (1864): 540-63.

Jolivet, Jean. “L’enjeu de la grammaire pour Godescalc,” in Jean Scot Érigène et l’histoire de la philosophie. Colloques Internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, No. 561. Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1977, 79-87.

_____. Godescalc d’Orbais et la trinité: la méthode de la théolgie à l’époque carolingienne. Paris: J. Vrin, 1958.

Kadner, D. “Aus den neuentdeckten Traktaten des Mönches Gottschalk.” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 61 (1942): 348-58.

Katičić, Radoslav. Litterarum studia. Književnost i naobrazba ranoga hrvatskog srednjovjekovlja. Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 1998.

Kagerah, Walter. “Bisher unbekannte Worte des Mönches Gottschalk.” Die Wartburg 36 (1937): 80-4.

_____. “Gottschalk der Sachse.” Die Wartburg 34 (1935): 386-91.

_____. “Gottschalk der Sachse.” Diss. Greifswald, 1938.

_____. Gottschalk der Sachse: ein Gottsucher aus deutscher Frühzeit. Berlin: Evangel. Bundes, 1936.

Katić, L. “Saksonac Gottschalk na dvoru kneza Trpimira.” Bogoslovska Smotra 30 (1932), 403-432.

Lambot, Cyrille. “Godescalco d’Orbais.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. 6. Vatican City: Ente per l’Enciclopedia cattolica e per il Libro cattolico, 1951, 888-9.

_____. “Opuscules grammaticaux de Gottschalk.” Revue bénédictine 44 (1932): 120-4.

Lavaud, Benoît. “Précurseur de Calvin ou témoin de l’augustinisme? Le cas de Godescalc.” Revue thomiste 15 (1932), 71-101.

_____. “Prédestination. IV. La controverse sur la prédestination au IXe siècle,” Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, Vol. 12. Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1935, 2901-35.

McKeon, Peter R. “The Carolingian Councils of Savonnières (859) and Tusey (860) and Their Background,” Revue bénédictine, 84 (1974): 75-110.

Monnier, F. “De Gothescalci et Johannis Scoti Erigenae controversia.” Diss. Paris, 1853.

Morin, Germain. “Gottschalk retrouvé,” Revue bénédictine, 43 (1931): 303-12.

Navarro Giron, Maria-Angeles. La Carne De Cristo. El Misterio Eucaristico a La Luz De La Controversia Entre Pascasio Radberto, Ratramno, Rabano Mauro Y Godescalco. Publicaciones De La Universidad Pontificia Comillas. S. I. Estudios 44. Madrid: Universidad Pontificia Comillas ad Madrid, 1989.

Nineham, D. E. “Gottschalk of Orbais: Reactionary or Precursor of the Reformation?” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 40.1 (1989): 1-18.

O’Donnell, J. M. “Gottschalk of Orbais.” In New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. Vol. 6. New York: Thomson, 2003, 371-2.

Perugi, Giuseppe Ludovico. Gottschalc. Rome: Athenaeum, 1911.

Picavet, François. “Les discussions sur la liberté au temps de Gottschalk, de Raban Maur, d’Hincmar et de Jean Scot.” Séances et travaux de l’Académie des Sciences morales et politiques 145 (1896): 644-69.

Prichard, James Cowles. The Life and Times of Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims. Littlemore: A. A. Masson, 1849.

Rädle, Fidel. “Gottschalk der Sachse.” In Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters, Verfasserlexikon, Vol. 3. Berlin and New York, 1981, 189-99.

_____. “Gottschalks Gedicht an seinen letzen Freund.” In Sigrid Krämer and Michael Bernhard, eds. Scire Litteras. Forschungen zum mittelalterishen Geistesleben. Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften 1988, 315-25.

Rosa, E. “Il Monaco Gottescalco e la controversia predestinaziana.” La civiltà cattolica 62 (1911): 188-201.

Schrimpf, Gangolf. “Die ethischen Implikationen der Auseinandersetzung zwischen Hraban und Gottschalk um die Prädestinationslehre.” In Winfried Böhne, ed. Hrabanus Maurus und seine Schule. Fulda: Rabanus Maurus Schule, 1980, 164-74.

_____. “Hraban und der Prädestinationsstreit des 9. Jahrhunderts.” In Kottje, Raymund and Harald Zimmerman, eds. Hrabanus Maurus. Lehrer, Abt und Bischof. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1982, 145-53.

Schrörs, Heinrich. Hinkmar, Erzbischof von Reims; sein Leben und seine Schriften. Freiburg: Herder, 1884; Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1967.

_____. Der Streit über die Prädestination im IX. Jahrhundert. Freiburg: Herder, 1884.

Stegmüller, Otto. “Martin von Tours oder Gottschalk von Orbais.” Revue bénédictine 76 (1966): 177-230.

Tavard, George H. Trina Deitas. The Controversy between Hincmar and Gottschalk. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1996.

Turmel, Joseph. “La controverse prédestinatienne au IXe siècle.” Revue d’histoire de la littérature religieuse 10 (1905): 47-69.

Vielhaber, Klaus. Gottschalk der Sachse. Bonner historische Forschungen, 5. Bonn: L. Röhrscheid, 1956.

Weber, Marie-Luise. Die Gedichte des Gottschalk von Orbais. New York: P. Lang, 1992.

Wiggers, Gustav Friedrich. “Schicksale der augustinishcen Anthropologie von der Verdammung des Semipelagionismus auf dem Synoden zu Orange und Valence 529 biz zur Reaction des Mönchs Gottschalk für den Augustinismus. Fünfte Abteilung: Der Mönch Gottschalk.” Zeitschrift für die historische Theologie 29 (1859): 471-594.

Zechiel-Eckes, Klaus. “Die Kontroverse um die göttliche Prädestination.” In his Florus von Lyon als Kirchenpolitiker und Publizist. Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 1999, 77-177.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Descriptive and Prescriptive Anglicanism

http://livingtext.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/descriptive-and-prescriptive-anglicanism/

Descriptive and Prescriptive Anglicanism

by joelmartin

You may be familiar with the two different approaches to grammar known as descriptive and prescriptive grammar. The Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language defines these approaches as follows:
A descriptive grammar is an account of a language that seeks to describe how it is used objectively, accurately, systematically, and comprehensively. A prescriptive grammar is an account of a language that sets out rules (prescriptions) for how it should be used and for what should not be used (proscriptions), based on norms derived from a particular model of grammar. (p 262-63)
A way to illustrate this is that a descriptivist would include “aint” in the dictionary because it is a word that people say, while a prescriptivist would not include it because it is a vulgar word, or a neologism and so should not be included.
I think the same schools of thought can be helpfully applied to the term “Anglicanism” today. Just what does it mean to be Anglican? If we use the descriptivist approach, we come up with an answer so broad as to cease being useful. You can be homosexual, bow to man-made objects, pray to Mary and the saints, be a conservative evangelical, be an Arminian or Calvinist, be charismatic or cessationist, and on and on. Archbishop Orombi attempted a summary a few years ago (here). There really aren’t many boundaries at all, everyone claims a right to the title and most have at least some historical precedent for their position.

If we turn to prescriptivist approach, I think we can fairly establish the parameters by looking at the two foundings of Anglicanism as something unique – the first under Henry VIII and the second under Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen. We could look at the formularies of the Church, the substance of the Book of Common Prayer, the Book of Homilies, the writings of the early Bishops and clergy, and so on. Although there will not be complete unity from this body of literature, I believe that there is enough substance to establish a firm baseline for what “Anglicanism” was intended to be.
Unfortunately, as Nietzsche said, the “world is the will to power” and the trajectories of Anglicanism show this in practice. Folks have paid no heed to the genesis of Anglicanism and have made it into a multifarious mess. As a prescriptivist I cannot agree that their interpretations are valid, ultimately they fail the Scriptural test. But from a descriptivist perspective, they can only be called Anglicans because that is what they call themselves.

Here are some sources that can contribute to a better understanding of what Anglicanism was intended to be:

[1] The Doctrine of the Church of England as to the Effects of Baptism in the Case of Infants, by William Goode.

[2] The Primer: a Book of Private Prayer, edited by Henry Walter.

[3] Eighteen Sermons Preached in Oxford 1640, by Archbishop James Usher.

[4] Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of England, Volume I and Volume II, by Edward Cardwell.

[5] The Principal Ecclesiastical Judgments Delivered in the Court of Arches 1867 to 1875, by Sir Robert Phillimore.

[6] Certain Sermons or Homilies: Appointed to be Read in Churches in the Time of the Late Queen Elizabeth, by the Church of England.

[7] Writings of the Rev. Dr. Thomas Cranmer

[8] Lives of the Elizabethan bishops of the Anglican Church, by Francis Overend White.

[9] Lawful Church Ornaments: Being an Historical Examination of the Judgment of Stephen Lushington in the case of Westerton v. Liddell, etc, by Thomas Walter Perry

[10] Formularies of faith put forth by authority during the reign of Henry VIII, ed. Charles Lloyd

[11] The Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England, Sir Robert Phillimore

And of course, Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, all the works of Latimer, Cranmer, and Jewel.