The Dawn of the Reformation: Essays in Late Medieval and Early Reformation Thought

by Heiko Oberman, Michael Welker, Douglas W. Scott (Translator)

Overview

Throughout these essays there runs a common theme: the need to place the Reformation movement in its medieval context, and to bridge the ideological gaps between late medieval Renaissance, and Reformation studies.

The opening chapters consider late medieval thought and the emergence of the young Luther at the center of the Reformation movement. There follows a study of the impact upon Luther of the philological, spiritual, and philosophical traditions of sixteen-century Europe. These traditions are fully examined in order to discern what Luther and his followers silently ignored or rejected, and so to delineate what is new and original in early Reformation thought.

The remaining chapters move from Luther to the wider world of events marking the Reformation era: the Peasant War, the Copernican Revolution, the beginning of the Counter-reformation and the reformed initiated by the Council of Trent.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802806550
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	02/17/2004
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

(1930-2001) Former Regents Professor of History anddirector of the Division for Late Medieval and ReformationStudies at the University of Arizona. A native of TheNetherlands and an ordained minister, Professor Obermanwas considered the pre-eminent Dutch Calvinist authority onlate-medieval theology. He was the author of manywell-received books on the Reformation, including the 1982biography Luther: Man Between God and the Deviland the three volume set on the Reformation: The Dawnof the Reformation: Essays in Late Medieval and EarlyReformation Thought, The Impact of theReformation: Essays, and The Reformation: Rootsand Ramifications.

Table of Contents

I. Fourteenth-Century Religious Thought: A Premature Profile

1. Introduction
2. The Myth of the Thomist Phalanx
3. The Franciscan Hegemony
4. The Augustinian Renaissance
5. The Coming of the Third Age
6. High Mysticism and the Beginnings of the Devotio Moderna
7. Epilogue

II. The Shape of Late Medieval Thought

1. Three Assumptions
2. The Many Faces of Crisis
3. The Search for New Security
4. Pax and the Third Age
5. 'Summa Misericordia…Super Summam Miseriam Directe Cadit'

III. Headwaters of the Reformation: Initia Lutheri—Initia Reformationis

1. Distinctio Realis—Distinctio Rationis
2. Contra Modernos
3. Via Gregorii
4. Epilogue

IV. Facientibus Quod in se est Deus non Denegat Gratiam: Robert Holcot O.P. and the Beginnings of Luther's Theology

1. Sola Fide Tenetur: Holcot's Scepticism
2. Sola Gratia Salvatur: Holcot's Predestinarianism
3. Theologia est Celum…Homo autem Terra: Luther's Earliest Postion (1509-1510)

V. 'Iustitia Christi' and 'Iustitia Dei:' Luther and the Scholastic Doctrines of Justification

1. Luther the Born Heretic
2. Medieval Pelagianism
3. Against a Common Front
4. The Last Judgment: Now!

VI. Simul Gemitus et Raptus: Luther and Mysticism

1. Introduction
2. Methodological Considerations
3. Toward a New Classification: 'Sic et Non'
4. Christ's Embrace: Death and Hell
5. The Mystical Context: Fundamental Concepts

VII. The Gospel of Social Unrest: 450 Years After the So-called 'German Peasants' War' of 1525

1. The German Peasants' War
2. The New Horizon of Expectation
3. Three Contemporary Testimonies as Judgements of the Peasants' War
4. 'Iustitia Praetextu': Justice as Pretext or Motive
5. Appendix: Peasant Plot and Program.
   A Contemporary Report on the Events of 1502

VIII. Reformation and Revolution: Copernicus' Discovery in an Era of Change

1. The Encounter Between Cosmology and Theology
2. Osiander's Unauthorized Preface
3. The Nominalist Background to the Copernican Revolution
4. The Copernican Manifesto
5. Appendix: From Copernicus' Dedication to Pope Paul III

IX. Duns Scotus, Nominalism, and the Council of Trent

1. Johannis Duns Scoti: temerariae opiniones
2. Partim-Partim
3. Meritum de Congruo
4. The Present State of Scholarship
5. Andreas de Vega, O.F.M., and the Pre-Conciliar Period
6. Some Notes on the Preconciliar History of Promereri
7. Promereri at the Council of Trent
8. Soto, O.P. and Vega, O.F.M.: Early Interpreters of the Decree

X. The 'Extra' Dimension in the Theology of Calvin

1. Etiam extra Ecclesiam
2. Etiam extra Coenam
3. Etiam extra Carnem
4. Etiam extra Legem

XI. Calvin's Critique of Calvinism

1. Schools of Calvin Interpretation
2. Embattled Fronts

XII. Quo Vadis, Petre? Tradition from Irenaeus to Humani Generis

1. The Early Church
2. The Period of Transition
3. Middle Ages—Reformation—Counter Reformation
4. Towards Contemporary Theology
5. Quo Vadis, Petre?

Biographical Information
Index of Names and Places

Editorial Reviews

Steven Ozment
"Here is Oberman at his most provocative and creative, a scholar from whom one always learns something new."

Gordon Rupp
"At last, a Protestant scholar, with immense learning, has landed on this dark side of the moon, with scholarly essays as enthralling as they are indispensable."

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