The papacy in the second half of the Middle Ages

The popes from the fifth century to the Reformation in the sixteenth century were not unlike the judges and kings of ancient Israel. The papacy contained both saints and scoundrels, and the witness of the church rose and fell accordingly just as God’s people did in ancient Israel under the judges and kings when they intermittently experienced seasons of blessing through obedience to God or languished in wilderness because of rebellion. However, an examination of the papacy’s history is beyond the scope of our inquiry. That said, we should note the general trends of the church under the papacy in the second half of the Middle Ages that led to the Reformation.

Innocent III was pope from 1198-1216. Pope Innocent’s view of the papacy was that, “The Lord gave Peter the rule not only over the universal Church, but also the rule over the whole world…No king can rule rightly unless he devoutly serves Christ’s vicar (the pope).” But Innocent’s ideal church reached beyond his desire for secular power. In 1215, Innocent recognized a need for changes within the church and called a council at the Lateran Church in Rome to initiate reform by which he meant reform of the clergy and monks.[1]

Through the centuries the church had become very wealthy. For many in the clergy, it was an easy vocation with a good income, and many exceptionally worldly men occupied the office of bishop. Thus, the religious and spiritual condition of a large majority of the clergy was appalling. Innocent’s call for reform was shared by many earnest Christians in the church, but as we shall see, their ideas of reform were often dramatically different than those of Innocent and subsequent leaders in the church hierarchy.[2]

One of those was Peter Waldo who believed that the Bible and particularly the New Testament should be the only basis for faith and living the Christian life. Waldo was a wealthy merchant from Lyons, France, but around the year 1176 he sold his merchandise and gave his money to the poor. He and his followers became known as the Waldenses. They memorized large portions of the New Testament, dressed simply, fasted three days each week, used only the Lord’s Prayer, and did not believe in purgatory, masses, and prayers for the dead. Men as well as women were allowed to be lay preachers. The Waldenses and other dissenting groups were considered heretics by the church, and to root out the supposed heretics, the church began the Medieval Inquisition (a Roman Catholic court) not to be confused with the church’s later Spanish Inquisition. The pope enlisted some of the nobles to help in eradicating the Waldenses and other groups, and as a consequence it was said that “blood flowed like water” for twenty years in southern France. But a remnant of the Waldenses survived and found refuge in the Alps of western Switzerland and three hundred years later accepted the teachings of Protestantism.[3]

Innocent and the popes that followed were able to maintain the church’s power over the temporal realm until the end of the thirteen century. But with the rule of Boniface VIII (1294-1303), the church began losing power and declined because of two factors. There was a spirit of rising nationalism among the countries under the church’s political domination thereby weakening the power and authority of a distant pope. From 1309 to 1376, the papal seat moved from Rome to France and was known as the “Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy.” The Italians were highly dissatisfied with this state of affairs and in 1378 elected their own pope which resulted in the “Great Schism” between the Italian and French factions within the Roman church. Thus, the church had two popes which lasted until 1417.[4] But the residual damage to the church caused by the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy and the Great Schism would last for many years.

Rumblings of reformation

The intrigues and destructive warfare within the church did not go un-noticed by those calling for reform of the church. Englishman and Oxford professor John Wycliffe began to criticize the clergy in 1376 because of the corruption within the church and its quest for wealth and political power. He called for a return to the poverty and simplicity of the apostles and declared that the Bible and not the church should be the only determinant of faith. Since the people could not read the Bible written in Latin, he translated it into the English language. Wycliffe died in 1384. His followers were called the Lollards and continued to preach that the only standard for doctrine was the Bible. Throughout England many Lollards were martyred at the stake and only a small remnant survived in secret until the time of the Reformation.[5]

The teachings of Wycliffe did not die with the Lollards but spread to Europe and eventually to Bohemia. John Hus was only fifteen when Wycliffe died. Hus eventually became the head of the University of Prague and enthusiastically welcomed Wycliffe’s teaching. He began to preach boldly about the corruption of the clergy, and many of his ideas became the central teachings of the future Reformation. Hus claimed that only Christ was the head of the church and popes and cardinals were not required for its governance. He challenged the sale of indulgences which was a monstrous practice that contradicted the doctrines of the Bible. For his brashness, Hus was excommunicated, imprisoned, and subsequently burned at the stake on July 6, 1415. For the next twenty-two years the church battled the Hussite movement which resulted in a great slaughter. In 1436, the church agreed to allow the Hussites certain freedoms in preaching and manner of communion. The church also agreed to attempt a reform of the clergy.[6]

The cry for reform within the church came from other parts of the Roman Church’s world as well. The Brethren of the Common Life arose about 1350 in the Netherlands and Germany. They strongly believed in Christian education as a means to bring about reform. Founded by Gerhard Groote, other leaders in the movement included John Wessel, Erasmus, and Thomas à Kempis.[7]

Humanism enters the church

We are nearing the threshold of the Reformation in the early sixteenth century. But before we discuss those events, we must address one other mayor influence on the church which hindered its efforts at reform and continued to afflict both Catholic and Protestant churches to the present day. The Middle Ages did not spring fully formed in Northern Europe with the fall of the Roman Empire in 476. Although ignorant, the barbarians were not stupid. They were ignorant because they could not read or write. But, in many respects their civilization rivaled those of other parts of the world. They had a religion, laws, systems of government, songs, stories, and knew how to make a living. They were excellent warriors, and the conquest of Rome exposed them to the world of books and other cultures.[8]

Life was harsh in the pioneer wilds of northern Europe at the beginning of the Middle Ages around A.D. 500. The first half of the Middle Ages has also been called the Dark Ages. This was a time when life was focused on the physical demands of survival and less on those tasks required of a cultivated society. Compared to the remainder of the civilized world, these simple agricultural people of France, Germany, the English Isles, and other parts of Northern Europe appeared to be backwards if not uncivilized. Yet, out of such sturdy stock grew Western civilization and by which is meant Christendom.[9]

Because the Northern Europeans began with so little and struggled under very harsh conditions, the Dark Ages did not end until the eleventh century. In the latter half of the eleventh century and early twelfth century, there began to occur significant social, economic, and political changes that produced an awakening in the cultural and intellectual life of Northern Europe.

From about 1100 to 1300, the men of Western Europe built a cohesive and somewhat refined civilization, and the broad and general characteristics of their medieval society remained for centuries and became the ideas and ideals that formed the foundations of modern Christendom. As towns grew and people had more leisure and material possessions, intellectual curiosity also grew.[10]

These early stirrings in Western Europe were the precursors to the Renaissance which was considered a rebirth or revival of learning usually considered as spanning the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. It was a time of transition between the Middle Ages and the modern times. Beginning in Italy, it marked the humanistic revival of the classical influence of Greece and Rome which led to the flowering of the arts, literature, and modern science.[11] But not all of the fruits of the Renaissance can be considered good for man. The humanistic elements of the Renaissance fundamentally changed the thinking about man and put him at the center and focus of life. In contrast with the biblical revelation, man was now the measure. This redefinition of man invaded the church as early as the thirteenth century through the thoughts and writings of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), an outstanding Catholic theologian whose influence still dominates many within the Catholic Church.[12]

Although Aquinas believed that man revolted against God and was fallen, he believed man was only partly fallen. Aquinas believed the will was fallen but the intellect was not. Men could rely on their human wisdom as well as the teachings of non-Christian philosophers. Philosophy was separated from the Bible. Therefore, man could act autonomously. Aquinas revered the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.). Through Aquinas, Aristotle’s philosophy began to be incorporated into the church as a source of authority alongside the Bible in giving answers to the questions about life. Aristotle focused on individual things (the particulars) as opposed to biblical absolutes and ideals. Human reason was now autonomous, and more and more of church pronouncements were based on Greek or Roman thought. Aquinas’s so-called unfallen human reason was now equal to revelation. But if one starts with things (e.g., a person’s individual acts) as opposed to the absolutes found in the Bible, there is no basis for values, morals, and law. In other words, there is no basis for determining right and wrong.[13]

Humanism had entered the church in the thirteenth century which resulted in an increasing distortion of biblical teaching because of a mixing of Christian and ancient non-Christian thought. Therefore, based the church’s presumption that man’s intellect was unfallen, it made possible a detour on the Roman road to salvation because fallen man was told that he was able to return to right relationship with God by “meriting the merit of Christ.”[14]

Renaissance humanism continued to strengthen and spread over the next two centuries as it evolved toward modern humanism in which man declared he was totally independent and denied God’s existence. Soon this focus on the particulars without benefit of God and his laws etched in creation spread to all spheres of life and knowledge.[15]

In 1453 Constantinople was conquered by the Turks and eventually renamed Istanbul. The eastern half of the old Roman Empire had fallen and signaled the end of Middle Ages. As a result Constantinople’s Greek scholars steeped in the humanistic worldview fled to Florence and other Italian cities. Only fourteen years prior to the fall in 1453, the Eastern Orthodox Church met in council with the Western church at Florence to discuss a renewal of relations between the two halves of the Christian world. Thus, a channel had already been established for humanistic thought in the Eastern church to flow into the Western church.[16] Over the centuries the Western church had left the simple faith of the fathers of the church as found in the New Testament. The church had also breached the biblical barriers between the ecclesiastical and civil authorities. And in the last half of the fifteenth century, the paganizing influence of the Renaissance seized the papacy.

In response to the great wickedness of the times, an Italian Dominican Monk named Savonarola boldly preached in Florence for four years against Pope Alexander VI and the moral abuses within the church. He was hanged in 1498 and his body burned.[17] But calls for reformation would not be quieted. Nineteen years later the sound of nails being driven into the church door in Wittenberg, Germany, echoed throughout the Christian world. The parchment secured by the nails was a cry for massive reform within a corrupt church. It was a call for not only an end to the moral abuses within the church but a return to sola scriptura—the scriptures only as a basis for faith and living the Christian life.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] B. K. Kuiper, The Church in History, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1951, 1964), pp. 124-125, 127.
[2] Ibid., pp. 127-128.
[3] Ibid., pp. 141-143.
[4] Ibid., pp. 134, 136-138.
[5] Ibid., pp. 143-144.
[6] Ibid., pp. 144-147.
[7] Ibid., pp. 150-151.
[8] Ibid., p. 54.
[9] John Herman Randall, Jr., The Making of the Modern Mind, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1926, 1940), pp.10-15.
[10] Ibid., pp. 13-14.
[11] “renaissance,” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, 1963), p. 725.
[12] Francis A. Schaffer, How Should We Then Live? (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 1976), p. 51.
[13] Ibid., pp. 43, 52, 55.
[14] Ibid., p. 56.
[15] Ibid., pp. 60, 71.
[16] Ibid., p. 60.
[17] Ibid., p. 80.